Black Lake Manor by Guy Morpuss #BookReview

A locked room. A brutal murder.
And a killer who can turn back time…

In the former mining town of Black Lake on the west coast of Canada, there is a story about a shipwreck. All those aboard died, except an unnamed man who staggered ashore. His descendants have a unique ability: once in their lives – and only once – they can unwind the events of the previous six hours.

More than two hundred years later, Ella Manning, marine biologist and part-time police constable, is attending a party at Black Lake Manor, the cliff-top mansion of the town’s divisive local billionaire. With a raging storm coming in from the Pacific, she and several other guests find themselves trapped. And when their host is discovered brutally murdered in a locked room, they turn to her to solve the crime.

Against the odds, Ella is sure she has identified the killer… but then time is unwound. With no memory of what she discovered before, her investigation begins again, with very different results. Someone is willing to use their gift to protect a killer, and everyone is a suspect…

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Of course I was drawn to reading this because of the locked room component. It was quite an  interesting concept but I was also a bit lost when reading about the logs of the door to Lincoln’s office being locked and unlocked because I wasn’t sure what that told me. There were repeated discussions about those specific times and a lot of attention drawn to it but I kept wondering if it wouldn’t be equally interesting to see who locked and unlocked their own bedroom door after 10 pm, it might rule out some people too who shouldn’t be wondering about?

Black Lake Manor has a fascinating mind-bending concept where some descendants of the Akath have the power to wind back time 6 hours. I enjoyed the story and I was even into the concept of hard light and ghost characters but there was just a bit too much of mythology and rituals involved for my taste and I didn’t feel Ella gained a lot with each unwinding of time. I was of course most of all interested in solving the murder mystery but so many other things were to be taken into account that it felt the story was focusing more on past legends than the present.

There was a lot I did like though, I really liked the three separate timelines, I loved that Ella had an octopus as a pet called Scarlett and how they interacted, I liked the lawyer character in the story most of all and Ella was a good character too, but the other characters weren’t all that interesting or developed.

The best surprise was at the end when I finally found out how and by whose hand Lincoln died. Big surprise there!

All in all an okay book but not one I think I’ll want to read again. It’s just a bit too much out of my box. I’m still debating whether Five Minds, his previous novel, would be more my style, the vote is still out.

I bought a hardback of this novel. This is my honest opinion.