Moon lake An East Texas gothic

In 1968, 13-year-old Daniel Russell's father attempted to kill himself and his son by driving into Moon Lake in East Texas. It's no ordinary lake. There's an entire town beneath the water, along with many bodies from when the town was flooded to create a dam. Sometimes, during droughts, the buildings of the town peek their heads above the water; that's the case more than 10 years later, which leads to the discovery of Daniel's father's remains. Daniel, who was rescued from the lake by a Black man, Jeb Candles, and his daughter, Ronnie, lived with the Candleses for a time after the rescue, hearing stories of how the town's city council allowed the lake to be flooded, knowing there were still people, mainly Black people, living there. Now Daniel is back in town to identify what's left of his father. Soon Daniel and Ronnie, a sheriff's deputy, are digging into the purported evildoings of the city council. "That goddamn lake," Daniel concludes, "is made up of . . . every mean, soulless act you can imagine, all of it wet with robber-baron dreams." Lansdale has long been a master of blending realistic human drama with elements of horror, and he's at it again here, in what Daniel calls a "Gothic gumbo" that layers a coming-of-age story within a plot encompassing ritualistic murder and racism at its most virulent.

This thought-provoking crime novel from Edgar winner Lansdale (More Better Deals) opens in 1968 in the East Texas town of Long Lincoln, where Daniel Russell, a 13-year-old white boy, survives drowning after his father intentionally drives them into Moon Lake. Orphaned, Daniel is left in the care of a local African American family, the Candles, before spending the remainder of his teenage years with his mercurial aunt in another town. Ten years later, Daniel gets a call from Long Lincoln's sheriff: his father's car has been found with a suspicious pile of bones in the trunk. Daniel returns to claim the remains and inadvertently gets entangled in the murky history of Moon Lake, Long Lincoln's elders, and the economic plight of the racially divided town. He teams up with Ronnie Candles, now a police officer, to investigate the discovery of even more bodies while rekindling their teenage affair from a decade before. As usual with this author, the Texas dialect is pitch-perfect, though some explanatory dialogue can be a bit didactic. Lansdale effectively dramatizes racial and economic conflict in this searing gothic tale. Agent: Danny Baror, Baror International. (June)