Lake on the Mountain: A Dan Sharp Mystery (Dan Sharp Mystery #1) by Jeffrey Round

Interesting Characters and engaging story

 

 

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Story Blurb: Dan Sharp, a gay father and missing persons investigator, accepts an invitation to a wedding on a yacht in Ontario’s Prince Edward County. It seems just the thing to bring Dan closer to his noncommittal partner, Bill, a respected medical professional with a penchant for sleazy after-hours clubs, cheap drugs, and rough sex. But the event doesn’t go exactly as planned.

When a member of the wedding party is swept overboard, a case of mistaken identity leads to confusion as the wrong person is reported missing. The hunt for a possible killer leads Dan deeper into the troubled waters and private lives of a family of rich WASPs and their secret world of privilege.

No sooner is that case resolved when a second one ends up on Dan’s desk. Dan is hired by an anonymous source to investigate the disappearance, twenty years earlier, of the groom’s father. The only clues are a missing bicycle and six horses mysteriously poisoned.

About the author: Jeffrey Round’s first Dan Sharp mystery, Lake on the Mountain, won the Lambda Literary Award in 2013. It was followed by Pumpkin Eater in 2014 and The Jade Butterfly in 2015. Jeffrey’s first two novels, A Cage of Bones and The P’town Murders, were listed on AfterElton’s Top 100 Gay Books. Jeffrey is also author of the Bradford Fairfax comic mysteries and a book of poetry, In the Museum of Leonardo da Vinci. His blog, A Writer’s Half-Life, has been syndicated online. He lives in Toronto.

Review by Gerry Burnie

As you are probably aware, I am a great promoter of Canadian books and authors, and so when I saw that Lake on the Mountain: A Dan Sharp Mystery (Dan Sharp Mystery #1) by Jeffrey Round [Dundurn, February 21, 2012] was set in Ontario, I naturally had to read it.

For those of you not familiar with Prince Edward County, it is an almost island community located on the north shore of Lake Ontario near Bellleville, Ontario. It dates back to the American War of Independence when The United Empire Loyalists fled north to receive land from the British government. It is a jewel of a community featuring wine and history in equal portions.

The story is told from the point of view of Dan Sharp, a private investigator specializing in missing persons, and a gay, single father to a teenage son, Ked.

What I like about Dan is that he is a good man with flaws, and that makes him credible in my mind – especially since many of his flaws are understandable. He is a former graduate of the school of hard knocks, growing up gay in Sudbury, to un-approving parents, and then escaping to the streets of Toronto. Therefore, one can forgive him for his edginess and over-indulgence at times.

His love life isn’t so hot, either. He has been dating a doctor for about a year, but the medic is a bit of a tramp with a taste for raunchy clubs and after-hours hangouts.

Through it all, Dan maintains his decency and his duty to Ked; even though Ked returns his support to his father as well.

The plot takes place during on a wedding cruise on Lake Ontario, when one of the guests disappears overboard, and Dan is called upon to investigate a suspected murder. Nonetheless, the murder mystery is really secondary to Dan’s coming to grips with his personal ‘demons,’ which he inevitably does.

Mention should be made as well of the interesting characters one meets along the way. Jeffrey Round has a talent for developing notable characters, and this is no exception. Four bees.

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Interested in Canadian history?

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