Death of a Lake

Ray Gillen, lucky lottery winner of £12,500, went for a swim in Lake Otway one night and never came back. Now the lake is dying, the victim of drought, intense heat, and thirst-crazed animals. On one of the lake's lonely outposts, five men and two women watch as the water level drops, wondering what it might reveal of Gillen's body--and his missing money. And waiting with them is Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, who, posing as Bony the horsebraker, has set out to quietly investigate Gillen's death but has found himself drawn into a human drama as powerful as the natural one being played out before him.

Death of a Lake was published by the Doubdleday Crime Club in America and by Heinemann in Britain in 1954. Pictured above is the Scribner's edition of 1983.