Book 4 from the Annie Graham series by Helen Phifer is done and dusted! This one was called ‘The Lake House’ and has a very eerie thing going for it.

In 1919 Eleanor and her sister sneak out to go to the fairground knowing full well that their parents wouldn’t agree on them going. After having looked around they come across a tent with a man standing before it that can’t be older than Eleanor. He’s selling tickets to his freak show but the sisters hesitate to enter but once they’ve entered and come across some kind of beast that is called a Windigo they get this eerie feeling. That’s when all hell breaks lose and a fire breaks out on the fairground – the man that sold the tickets makes the women follow him to safety and goes back to save what can be saved.

On the 31^st of December 1930 Martha and her older brother Joe are playing hide and seek in their beautiful newly build lake house fit for the wealthiest people with a cellar and an attic and even has staff working for them. Back to playing hide and seek, Joe knows that Martha hates the attic because there could be spiders, so he knows she won’t go up there looking for him. When Martha calls out defeat Joe walks down the stairs and get’s an ear full from 5-year-old Martha telling him he is playing unfair since the cellar and attic are off limits. After Joe has persuaded Martha for one last round he thinks of an even better hiding place – the cellar. He was never seen again; his body has never been found.

Present:

Relocated to be closer to home, Henry has sold his caravan and bought another one which is so secluded it gives him more time to roam around instead of being cooped up inside all day but with funds running low and Henry not being able to access his money because that would put him on everyone’s radar; Megan gets a job at the coffee shop in the city center and that exact coffee shop is one of Annie’s go to multiple times a week. Henry still hasn’t got a plan, he wants Annie to watch him off Will and then have Annie all for himself; but don’t take his yearning for anything other then some crush because make no mistake, in the end both Will and Annie will be gone; at least, that is what Henry wants.

Annie and Jake get called out to a lake house where elderly Martha is waiting for them to arrive, a man looking at the drains in the cellar has gone missing. Martha tells Annie once the man was down the stairs; she went on to make some tea and she heard a scraping sound and a gurgling kind of scream. With a house like that, Annie and Jake think this man has done a disappearing act and has taken some valuables, is hidden inside the house or scouted the house and will be back later on to burglar the place. Both Annie and Jake go down the cellar where they see that the drain cover has been removed a bit and a heavy-duty torch lay abandoned on the floor. Annie gets this weird feeling that something lives here that shouldn’t. Annie spots something in the drain, something huge and gray, way to big to be a rat and insanely fast.

The police is still not an inch closer in to finding where Henry has been hiding out, his companion hasn’t been found either, they could be anywhere by now but everyone knows about Henry’s mission so they expect him close by they just don’t know how close by he really is.

Will Megan finally have her first kill? What is that thing living in Martha’s cellar? Does Henry get his chance to execute his plan that eventually takes form? How many bodies will drop before this book comes to a conclusion?

Another ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ star read, I seriously can not believe that Helen has written this many books and there hasn’t been one that has disappointed me.