The Girl Across the Lake (Unabridged‪)‬

If even the police are lying, who will tell the truth?

10 August, 2003, the hottest day ever in the UK, ten-year-old Molly Parker disappears without a trace in North Wales. Despite his relentless efforts, DI Bill Lennox has to release his prime suspect, Jim Roper, for lack of evidence. Still obsessed with the case, Bill is finally suspended, demoted and forced to leave.

Twenty years on, another young girl is kidnapped but escapes, casting suspicion once again on Roper. But now the investigator is Bill’s niece, DI Barbara Forster. Roper is re-arrested but another girl vanishes ... the race is on to find her.

Meanwhile Alice Myers, journalist and creator of the edgy true-crime podcast, The Girl at the Window, has controversially prompted the re-opening of the Molly Parker cold case Barbara’s uncle failed to crack. Her provocative actions lay bare old wounds and galvanise Barbara into nailing the perpetrator and redeeming her late uncle’s tarnished reputation.

But it is only when Barbara and Alice begin working together that the buried truth starts to emerge about this small, insular community and its harrowing past and present. Layers of secrets are peeled away, revealing a chilling tapestry woven with deception, guilt and unspeakable horrors.

Past passions lead to betrayal and a terrible revenge—one that still torments the present—in a fraught tale of wrecked lives, family tragedy and moral consequences.