Lake Silence, by Anne Bishop

Nature is predominant in Anne Bishop’s world of The Others where humans live on the sufferance of the Terra Indigene, who are red in tooth and claw when those humans forget their place. Stupidity and greed means this happens all too often, making life difficult for smarter homo sapiens who try to live in harmony with nature. Lake Silence references the central place and characters of earlier books of The Others but stands alone. Following a nasty divorce Vicki DeVine has moved to the small town of Sproing, on the Finger Lakes, to run a guesthouse. Although she owns the buildings she is only a caretaker of the land, at the pleasure of the native inhabitants – and the consequences of transgression are fatal. When her ex husband turns up to try to wrest the property from her it takes an alliance of the town’s unusual inhabitants to combat the machinations of the evil consortium behind him. In Lake Silence Bishop takes her urban fantasy into the countryside, but retains the familiar nexus of crime, cops and creatures, along with enjoyable, fully-rounded characters. The underlying theme of environmentalism versus capitalism provides a satisfying depth to the dark thriller, which resonates with contemporary real-world issues.