Under the Lake

by Stuart Woods Narrated by Tom Stechschulte

Overview

Stuart Woods, the best-selling author of L.A. Times and Heat, has created a haunting thriller full of ghostly images, murder and old family secrets. Part detective story, part ghost story, part Southern gothic-this absorbing novel will fascinate listeners as a small town's present, past and future converge.

Editorial Reviews

Stephen King

Part detective story, part ghost story, part Southern gothic. . . . It scared the living hell out of me!

Andrew Greeley

A marvelous book. . . . One of the best I've read in a long, long time.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

The Edgar Award-winning author of Chiefs (basis of a TV miniseries) and the bestselling Deep Lie now offers a highly readable if somewhat overheated thriller-cum-gothic that includes murder, drug smuggling, faith healing, hallucinations, revenants and incest. A one-time ace reporter rents a cabin in a backwoods Georgia town, then stumbles upon and determines to solve the town mystery, which involves a seemingly affable sheriff, an autocratic town father and an incest-ridden family whose once-prosperous farm now lies under a lake. He joins forces with a plucky female reporter bent on proving that the sheriff is ``dirty,'' and there's never a dull moment as the story surges toward its exciting climax. The conclusion is a little too far-fetchedbut by that time readers have had more than their money's worth. Major ad/promo; Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club alternates. (May 18)

From the Publisher

Praise for Under the Lake

“Another gem...A book to read and get chills from on even the hottest day.”—San Diego Union

“Keeps you turning page after page.”—The Washington Post

“Overwhelming...I’ve never read a novel like it in my life…Everything is swept away by the simple raw power of the concept and Stuart Woods’ ability to actually carry it off…I’ll have nightmares about that lake!”—Stephen King
 
“A blockbuster certain to keep you turning the pages long into the night.”—*The Macon Telegraph & News

“Never a dull moment as the story surges toward its exciting climax.”—Publishers Weekly

More Praise for Stuart Woods

“Stuart Woods is a no-nonsense, slam-bang storyteller.”—Chicago Tribune

“A world-class mystery writer...I try to put Woods’s books down and I can’t.”—Houston Chronicle 

“Mr. Woods, like his characters, has an appealing way of making things nice and clear.”—The New York Times

“Woods certainly knows how to keep the pages turning.”—Booklist

“Since 1981, readers have not been able to get their fill of Stuart Woods’ New York Times bestselling novels of suspense.”—Orlando Sentinel

JUN/JUL 01 - AudioFile

Writer John Howell travels to Sutherland, Georgia, to pen a biography, but his journalistic instincts are revived by the mysterious events taking place. This suspenseful thriller combines the elements of a crime story with the supernatural. Tom Stechschulte’s superb reading grabs the listener’s attention through every exciting and spooky scene. His perfectly paced narration sets the mood for pulse-pounding action sequences and eerie, goosebump-inducing ghostly appearances. Stechschulte portrays several characters using authentic Southern dialects that are slightly different for each. Listeners will be captivated by Stechschulte’s brilliant performance. M.H.S. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169070781
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	04/13/2012
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	505,154

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

John Howell stirred to the sound of a familiar voice. Elisha Cook, Jr., he registered immediately. He kept his eyes shut and listened to the next voice. Sidney Greenstreet. He had the scene before Bogart even spoke: The Maltese Falcon and Bogart had just been drugged. Howell sat up and, throwing up a hand against the morning sunlight, stared at the television set in disgust. The Maltese Falcon was a midnight, not a mid-morning movie. Where did these people come off putting a black movie like that on at ten o'clock in the morning? Probably some post-grad Bogart freak of a programmer at the station. He should be waking up to I Love Lucy reruns, not The Maltese Falcon. What was the world coming to? There was no sense of fitness, of propriety, anymore.

He looked about him at the seedy room above the garage. It was a mess, as usual; manuscript paper scattered over the desk and floor; the typewriter, its keys dusty from disuse, waiting. The sight of it filled him with the nameless dread that seemed to start most of his days lately. The inside of his mouth felt like the inside of his head; swollen, inflamed, dirty. There was an empty Jack Daniel's bottle and a second, one-third empty, on the desk next to the typewriter, silent evidence of the origin of his condition. No, not the origin, just a symptom. The origin was harder to pin down, required more thought than Howell felt able to muster. He fixed his mind on the only thing that would move him off the old leather sofa and get him into the house: a toothbrush. He would kill for a toothbrush.

He squinted to bring hiswristwatch into focus: eleven fifteen. Shit, he had an appointment at noon. He struggled upright, slipped his feet into his sneakers, grabbed the empty bourbon bottle and headed for the house, dropping the bottle into a trash can next to the back door. He didn't want the maid picking up empties.

"Afternoon, Mr. Howell" the maid said dryly as he passed through the kitchen. Bitch. He didn't need that from her. He ran up the stairs to the bedroom. She had left it pin neat, the maid wouldn't have to lift a finger. He dug a suit out of his dressing room, flung it on the bed, brushed his teeth violently for two minutes, then dove into a hot shower.

Forty-five minutes later, miraculously on time, he sat flipping idly through the pages of Poultry Month magazine and wondering what the hell he was doing there. The reception room was a perfectly normal, even tasteful one, with plush carpets, leather furniture and decent art. Only the seven-foot-high fiberglass chicken seemed out of place.

The phone on the reception desk buzzed, and the young woman lifted it and turned toward Howell. "Mr. Pitts will see you now," she said. She rose and opened the office door for him.

Lurton Pitts came at him from behind the huge desk like a baseball manager comes at an umpire after a questionable call. Only at the moment his hand shot out did the man smile. "John...can I call you John? I'm awful glad to meet you. I've admired your work for an awful long time, I can tell you. I've been reading your stuff ever since you won the Pulitzer Prize for the stories about those murders. I read your book about it, too. Fine stuff, that was."

"Well, thanks, Mr. Pitts."

"Call me Lurton, son, everybody does. Can we get you a glass of iced tea or something?"

Howell supposed that a man who had on his office wall a warmly autographed photograph of himself with the Reverend Jerry Falwell would not have a bar in the same office. "No thanks, I'm just fine, uh...Lurton."

"Good, good," Pitts said, directing him toward a chair and circling the desk to find his own. "I'm grateful to Denham White for arranging this meeting. I know how valuable your time is, and I'll get right to the point. What do you know about me, John?"

"Well, only what I read in the papers, I guess." Howell knew that the man had over a thousand Little Chickie fried chicken parlors all over the country, that he was the quintessential self-made man, and that he espoused causes and gave money to charities and officeholders that were all over the political ball park, from far right to far left field. It was hard to get a fix on Lurton Pitts.

"I've had a rewarding life," Pitts said, leaning back in his high-backed leather chair and gazing out over the Atlanta skyline. "My daddy was a one-mule fanner until I showed him how to get in the chicken-raising business. I was fourteen when I figured that out. By the time I was twenty-one I was the biggest chicken farmer in the state. I opened my first Little Chickie that year, too. It's grown by leaps and bounds, and I don't mind telling you we're snapping at Colonel Sanders's ass, if you'll pardon the expression."

"Mmmm," Howell said. He couldn't think of anything else to say. Why was he here?

"But my interests have always been broader than the chicken business," Pitts continued. "I'm interested in foreign relations; bet you didn't know that."

"Nope" Howell replied, trying not to giggle.

Pitts leaned forward and fixed Howell with an intense gaze. "John, can I confide in you?"

"Oh, sure" This was some bizarre joke of Denham White's. He would arrive at lunch and there would be six guys around a table, drinking martinis and speechless with laughter. He tried to think of some graceful way just to leave, but failed.

Under the Lake. Copyright © by Stuart Woods. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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