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Title: Inferior Layman
Review: There's a reason why Layman didn't publish this book while he was alive. It comes across as a lot of ideas, many completely unrelated, awaiting the editing required to make them a cohesive novel. The whole thing starts out as a murder mystery concerning a teenage girl being terrorized by a cleaver wielding maniac who kills her boyfriend, then, half way through, this entire storyline is abandoned as we find ourselves mixed up with a police officer who may, or may not, be a vicious serial killer. The plot is fuelled by ridiculous contrivances and coincidences, and character behavior is unbelievable. Anybody familiar with Layman knows that his female characters will take all manner of insane risks in the pursuit of sex, but those in 'The Lake' go even one step further and frequently jeopardize the lives of all around them just for a quick shag with a good-looking stranger. Of course, the whole thing is compulsively readable, as Layman always is, but it's definitely a second rate effort.
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