Author Matthew Sullivan\u00a0opens “Midnight in Soap Lake” on a remote irrigation road in the sunbaked Central Washington desert, as our heroine, Abigail, out on a morning stroll, makes out something in the distance heading towards her: A four-year-old pajama-clad boy, splashed in someone\u2019s blood.<\/p>\n
The mystery that follows alternates between the perspective of Abigail and the backstory of the child\u2019s deceased mother, Esme, who had fled town in a hurry on high school graduation night eight years ago, and now has been found in the driver\u2019s seat of an old Cutlass parked out in the middle of the sagebrush.<\/p>\n
Clues dole themselves out at a leisurely pace throughout the short chapters, and like a good suspense story, each one raises more questions: The fire that consumed Esme\u2019s home as a child; the security cam footage at the Ryegrass rest stop of Esme opening a garbage bin and throwing trash into her car on the same night she was murdered. Nothing quite adds up.<\/p>\n
Set in Soap Lake, where Sullivan, the author, lived for a while, the lake itself has something to do with all this. Possessing mineral contents so rare they\u2019ve been studied by the National Science Foundation, Soap Lake really is a miracle of nature, a gathering place for members of the Colville tribes for centuries before settlers arrived. It went through a boom phase in the 1930s when wounded veterans of the Great War from around the country and others suffering from skin conditions like Buerger\u2019s Disease would be treated in the waters and spared from having their limbs amputated. The Veterans\u2019 Bureau was impressed enough with the results that they opened a sanitarium next to the lake. A bill was introduced by the then-4th District Congressman to have the lake and the area around it declared a national park.<\/p>\n
The boom faded a long time ago, and Sullivan, while revering the lake, is less kind toward the town that bears its name. It seems like every reviewer has been comparing the story with Twin Peaks, although it reminded me more of Chinatown.<\/p>\n
For the record, Soap Lake is one of my favorite places east of the mountains. Its Main Street has never seemed desolate to me, with several interesting small businesses, an active community theater, an affordable hotel\/spa and public park by the water and lack of chain stores. I hope mystery\/suspense fans will read “Midnight in Soap Lake,” but won\u2019t get put off visiting the place or learning more about its history.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Chris Saunders is a bookseller at Inklings Bookshop. He and other Inklings staffers review books in this space every week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Author Matthew Sullivan\u00a0opens “Midnight in Soap Lake” on a remote irrigation road in the sunbaked Central Washington desert,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":151845,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[1022,171,67,132,68,3800],"class_list":{"0":"post-151844","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us","13":"tag-yhr-reporters"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115041369033916514","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}