On Tall Pine Lake

Nona Conrad and her family are lured to a sporting camp in the Ozarks with the promise of summer lodging and employment. After strangers begin pursuing her to get their hands on a mysterious package sent to her by her half-brother, Nona becomes suspicious of everyone she encounters--including the camp's take-charge owner, Simon Wright. Anna Fields's pacing captures the nuances of small-town life. She individualizes each of the story's secondary characters, who are largely male. Her characterizations help listeners differentiate between the heroes and the villains, the young and the old. Throughout, Fields never loses her focus on the developing relationship between Nona and Simon and the impending "happily ever after." G.O. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

November 6, 2006
Garlock's 50th novel is a delightful treasure set in seemingly tranquil Home, Ark., in 1980. Nona Conrad has moved her 14-year-old sister, Maggie, and her friend Mabel Rogers to Tall Pine Lake to spend the summer managing an isolated lakeside fishing camp. But as soon as sexy Simon Wright arrives and announces he's purchased the run-down camp, the sleepy outpost becomes a hotbed of thievery, kidnapping and murder. Chicago-based thugs Frank and Webb descend on the camp to retrieve a mysterious package that Nona's wayward brother mailed to her, bringing with them an overdose of violent mayhem. The husband of pregnant camper LeAnn Leasure ends up dead in the lake, two characters are kidnapped (separately), beatings are rampant and two other characters take a dirt-nap as the narrative builds to an edge-of-your-easy-chair thriller that romantic suspense junkies will not want to pass up.