Hotel on Shadow Lake

Tully’s first novel, an intricate read-it-in-one-sitting mystery–cum–family saga, spans a hundred years, two continents, and two world wars. In Munich on German Unity Day in 1990, septuagenarian Martha Wiesberg receives a letter that was trapped behind the Berlin Wall for more than four decades. The words of her long-dead twin brother triggers events that lead to her sudden disappearance. In 2017, Maya Wiesberg, a reclusive Munich independent bookstore owner, learns that the body of her beloved grandmother, Martha, has been unearthed in an upstate New York forest preserve. Maya drops everything to investigate the mysterious death. She reserves a room at a resort hotel that lies amid the splendor of that New York forest, where Martha undoubtedly spent her last days. Told from the point of view of three central characters—and including its own fairy tale—this is a story about murder, greed, love (won then lost), and, above all, intrigue. Readers will be eager to see what Tully, who has worked in film and TV for many years, comes up with next. Agent: Anna Soler Pontas, Pontas Literary Agency (Spain). (Apr.)