Cemetery Lake by Paul Cleave

Cemetery Lake by Paul Cleave

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Christchurch Murders, 3

This is my 4th book by Cleave and I can't say enough about how pleased I am to have found this author. I started with his last (to date) book "Joe Victim", then went back and started at the beginning. This series is very unique in that they feature the same police department but not the same main characters and the books do not take place one after another. I'm totally surprised by each book. Cemetery Lake takes place concurrently with book 1 "The Cleaner" and mentions the case going on in that book along with including some detectives from the first two books but the main character is a private detective who has been briefly mentioned in the previous books, but whom we've never met ... until now. And what a unique, provoking character is Theodore Tate, ex-cop turned PI. Tate takes on a case the police are working on as he feels some responsibility to it as it ties into one he was working on before he left the job. But Tate is much more of an anti-hero than the usual main character of police procedurals. This guy has his own brand of justice, loose ethics, and yet personally validates his choices as morally ethical. I couldn't help but liking him to some degree and am looking forward to the further two books he is featured in. The story really kept me guessing. I had no idea where it was going and when I did, it surprised me by going somewhere completely different; the twist was unexpected. There were several shocks along the way and I ended up reading this very fast. It's also quite refreshing to read a thriller series set in New Zealand, where things are done just a little bit differently, for a change of pace from my usual US, UK and Scandi thrillers.



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