Wolf LakeReviews
"Fans of classic fair play who appreciate well-developed characterizations in their whodunits will relish Verdon's richly atmospheric fifth mystery featuring retired NYPD homicide detective Dave Gurney (after 2014's Peter Pan Must Die). A former police colleague brings Dave back into his previous life by involving him in a bizarre and baffling case. Ethan Gall, the owner of Wolf Lake Lodge in the Adirondacks, hired renowned psychologist Richard Hammond to provide on-site hypnotic therapy at the lodge. After four of Hammond's patients, including Gall, committed suicide, the doctor was dubbed the "death whisperer" by the press and suspected, by the public and the New York state police, of talking patients into killing themselves. Despite the seriousness of his situation, Hammond refuses to hire an attorney or seek any other help. His sister, Jane, however, asks Dave to work for her to clear her brother's name. To the detective's surprise, his wife, Madeleine, who has been ambivalent about his continuing to sleuth, agrees that he should take on the case. Verdon couples the continued nuanced exploration of Dave and Madeleine's relationship with one of his most sophisticated solutions yet." — Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
"At the center of the natural and emotional turbulence, Gurney remains steady, methodical, and scientific as he pulls together the case’s disparate strands...The notion of shared nightmares holds the reader start to finish."
— Kirkus
"Wolf Lake is a perfect thriller, one that revels in the darkest of places, in worlds both real and imagined. There are monsters in this book, certainly, but they live and breathe and look like us, which makes them all the more frightening. A complex, engrossing mystery, Wolf Lake will challenge what you believe to be true about the banality of evil and the lengths men will go to for the things they most want to hide."
—Tod Goldberg, author of Gangsterland, Finalist for the Hammett Prize