So far I'm intrigued and also horrified at the flash backs descriptions of the war in Vietnam that is revealed through the main protagonist! Hard to comprehend such depravity of the purely evil wartime actions depicted.

*****Finished***

That said; the writing was crisp, vivid, and chilling! The mental ravages of 'insanity killing' in the trenches echoes throughout the book. The jarring perversity of it all leaves the reader (this reader anyway) with disturbing questions?

What was real and what was a sleight of the hand trick of deception and repression?

How many layers of cloaked pretense can be applied before the veneer cracks...the facade peels away and truth falls freely to emerge appallingly heinous?

How does the author present it?... the protagonist handle it?...the reader make sense of it???

It is a book full of meaning and hidden meaning, multilayered, complex, raw, intense, yet coated with an ever burning need to be accepted, recognized and loved!

I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in the human spirit's basic survival tactics under duress and what depravity and horrific events can do to the human mental functions under extreme conditions.

It is a book that will haunt you and awaken you at the same time!

I don’t know why I forced myself to finish this. The author clearly knows how to string pretty sentences together but everything about this was just insufferable, repetitive and very much pointless. An edgy 11 year old could’ve easily written something much more profound (seriously that “Kill Jesus!1!” schtick made me want to gouge out my eyes so bad like I am soooo spooked and scandalized right now *snorts*).

When I came upon this book, its scorching cover colour immediately grabbed my attention, as did the title. Lake of the Woods? Really? I was born in a community on the northern shore of The Lake of the Woods, but this story could not possibly be set in that wilderness! Or could it? Well, it is! The subject matter is one that I normally avoid but — how could I not read this book?

It was a whirlwind. So much packed into a mere 300 pages. I careened through it in a record 36 hours! It’s a mystery with a unique presentation — a crackerjack of a plot, complete with clues, hints, theories, and hypotheses, but NO ANSWERS. A wild, exhilarating ride for the mind and the senses!

It’s a very personal story of a veteran of the Vietnam War who, after the war, decided to serve his country as a politician. But for me the story is much more. It has transported me back to my “homeland” and to the years when the situation in Vietnam was swirling around (but not blatantly affecting) us in that wilderness place. We were geographically isolated from much of Canada but ironically so close to the American border. The novel encourages me to see those years from a different perspective, all these years later, and to ask broader questions about politics; the motivation and the modus operandi of politicians (then and now); the experiences of the soldiers at the My Lai massacre; the psychological impact of military training and active duty; and the effect on the spouse of both political and military service by their partner.

This story packed a big punch and, for me, the greatest impact was the setting. I lived there, near The Lake of the Woods, when this fictional story took place. The emphasis for me must be on the word “fictional”. But could it have happened? Maybe a similar story did unfold while the “locals”, in ignorance and rural bliss, lived out their humdrum daily lives. What dramatic tales do the lakes and forests of Northwestern Ontario have to tell? Now I do wonder.