Dead in the Water

Jane Barrow just wanted a vacation. The lake had other plans.

After a summer of quiet routines, Jane convinces her family to escape to a cabin on the Lake of the Ozarks for a long weekend. It's exactly what they need - warm water, a rented pontoon, and a few days with nothing more pressing than deciding between burgers and pizza. For once, no mysteries. No cases. Just Jane, Mike, the kids, and Annie the dog, finally slowing down together.

Then they find Georgia Whitley floating face-down at her own marina dock.

Georgia was warm, capable, and well-liked, the kind of woman who'd been running Whitley Marina on her own for years without complaint. The authorities call it an accident. But when Georgia's daughter Emily approaches Jane and Mike with doubts, and a few too many unanswered questions, Jane can't quite leave it alone.

She never could.

As Jane quietly digs into the life and death of the woman who rented them their pontoon just days before, she uncovers a tangle of secrets beneath the lake's sparkling surface: a business under pressure, a mysterious visitor who had no business being at a marina, and someone who very much needed Georgia's death to look like an accident.
With Mike's law enforcement instincts and her own stubborn refusal to accept easy answers, Jane pieces together what really happened. However the local sheriff's department would rather close the case and send the tourists home.

Because some things don't stay buried. Even at the bottom of a lake.

Dead in the Water is a warm, witty, and compulsively readable addition to the Jane Barrow mystery series - proof that no matter where Jane goes, trouble has a way of finding her