title: The Story of the Lake
author:  Laura Chester 
description: Spanning the decades from the early 1900s through the 1960s, Chester's (Bitches Ride Alone, Black Sparrow, 1991) new fiction is a meandering saga about wealthy Midwestern families who summer at Lake Nogowogotoc, Wisconsin. Walter and Lucy Schraeger's marriage is floundering because of Walter's long-term affair with Alicia Ulrich, the glittering femme fatale of the lake. Veiled in mystery and deceit and possessing a murderous heart, Alicia finds that she is haunted by her early relationship with her father and his unusual death. Other lake stories include the young scion's taking advantage of the innocent maid, the hired help's rising above his station in life, soured marriages, unrequited love, a spinster-turned-suffragette, and sudden, untimely deaths. Unfortunately, Alicia is the only spicy character in this plodding novel, which is burdened by an excess of bland characters and underdeveloped plots that do not segue smoothly from chapter to chapter. Not recommended.?Mary Ellen Elsbernd, Northern Kentucky Univ. Lib., Highland Heights<BR>Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
zlib_text: **Deep Fear**
  
   **Rachel Lynch**
  
   **Chapter 1**
  
  Conrad Walker left his house in Watermillock, to head off for his morning swim
  across Lake Ullswater: an activity he’d been doing for fifty-three years. He’d
  only missed the ritual on a handful of occasions that he could recollect. One
  was because of the biggest storm in living memory. The wind and rain had
  battered the steamers and caused thousands of pounds worth of damage. Conrad
  had been fifteen years old. His mother hadn’t allowed him near the She turned
  to face Colinake on that day, but he’d climbed out of his bedroom window
  anyway, to walk down to the shore and watch the fierce anger of the
  tempestuous water.
  
  Nugget padded on ahead of him. She was his third Collie, and all three of them
  had swum the lake with him every day until, one by one, they could no longer
  manage it. He didn’t go as far as he used to, but it was far enough for him
  and Nugget. The July sun shone in a clear, piercing sky, and Conrad figured
  the lake might be