The Truth You're Told

October 4, 2021
Samantha “Sam” Hutchings, the 48-year-old heroine of this entertaining crime novel from Canadian author Clark (Clean Sweep), has come to the family cabin on Bird Lake in Manitoba to write the great Canadian novel. In recent years, Sam, who’s divorced, has seen little of her 17-year-old daughter, Megan Goodman, who’s joining her at the cabin. Megan has a summer job at nearby Whiskey Jack Lodge, where Sam worked the summer of 1988. Sam’s time at the lodge the following summer was cut short by a fire at a neighboring lake in which her father, Gerry Hutchings, died. In the present, Sam and Megan realize things aren’t quite what they seem at the lodge, whose guests are ex-military families. Meanwhile, Sam researches Gerry’s past and discovers he wasn’t an accountant, as she always thought, but worked for a security company. Sam’s mother, Lena, who has dementia, provides a cryptic clue to what led to Gerry’s death. The stakes rise when Megan uncovers information implicating the lodge’s owner in a nefarious scheme. Megan’s subsequent disappearance leads to a nail-biting attempt to save her. Credible characters and a suspenseful, complex plot bode well for Clark’s next.