Starvation Lake
Finalist for the Edgar Award for Best First Novel, Harlan Coben meets early Dennis Lehane in this “smashing debut thriller” (Chicago Tribune), set in a small northern Michigan town by a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist.
In the dead of a Michigan winter, pieces of a snowmobile wash up near the crumbling, small town of Starvation Lake—the same snowmobile that went down with Starvation’s legendary hockey coach years earlier. But everybody knows Coach Blackburn's accident happened five miles away on a different lake. As rumors buzz about mysterious underground tunnels, the evidence from the snowmobile says one thing: murder.
Gus Carpenter, editor of the local newspaper, has recently returned to Starvation after a failed attempt to make it big at the Detroit Times. In his youth, Gus was the goalie who let a state championship get away, crushing Coach's dreams and earning the town's enmity. Now he's investigating the murder of his former coach. But even more unsettling to Gus are the holes in the town’s past and the gnawing suspicion that those holes may conceal some dark and disturbing secrets—secrets that some of the people closest to him may have killed to keep.
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Bryan Gruley
Bryan Gruley is the award-winning, critically acclaimed author of the forthcoming thriller BITTERFROST. “Visceral, vivid, and suspenseful, Bitterfrost immerses readers in a chilly—and chilling—world of lost dreams and deadly feuds," New York Times bestselling author Meg Gardiner says of BITTERFROST. "I was instantly and completely engrossed. Masterfully done.” Gruley's sixth novel was published to critical acclaim in April 2025. A sequel, River Deep, is scheduled to be published in July 2026.
Starvation Lake
Starvation Lake consists of three books. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
