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Robert Macdonald #32
Still Waters
Trouble is brewing for the Hoggetts and their friend Chief Inspector Macdonald in Lunesdale, deep in the Lancashire fell country. By the jagged cliffs and chilling depths of a secluded quarry pool, strange noises disturb the night, and after an architect surveying the area is nearly hoisted into the cold waters by an unseen assailant, suspicions of a cold current of crime running through the area become a matter for the police.
First published in 1949, this classic of Lake District crime fiction pairs Lorac’s evocative depictions of her beloved Lunesdale with a twisting and intelligent puzzle for Chief Inspector Macdonald.
First published in 1949, this classic of Lake District crime fiction pairs Lorac’s evocative depictions of her beloved Lunesdale with a twisting and intelligent puzzle for Chief Inspector Macdonald.
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1949
26 people are currently reading
122 people want to read
About the author
E.C.R. Lorac
79 books181 followersEdith Caroline Rivett (who wrote under the pseudonyms E.C.R. Lorac, Carol Carnac, Carol Rivett, and Mary le Bourne) was a British crime writer. She was born in Hendon, Middlesex (now London). She attended the South Hampstead High School, and the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London.
She was a member of the Detection Club. She was a very prolific writer, having written forty-eight mysteries under her first pen name, and twenty-three under her second. She was an important author of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.
She was a member of the Detection Club. She was a very prolific writer, having written forty-eight mysteries under her first pen name, and twenty-three under her second. She was an important author of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
January 26, 2026
Ah! Now this was very, very clever. I love the final line that puts a certain character into role as the author. And of course there are some links to Lorac’s own life in the Hoggetts and in Lunesdale. I adore Kate Hoggett! I wish she was my aunt or older sister. I also thought one of the red herrings was particularly good. I always cheer when we get Peter Reeves. I just wish he was in this more. I must admit the first couple chapters didn’t seem promising but the more I read, the better it got. The last third was definitely the best, including one time when I gasped out loud. The cleverness of the title hit me suddenly too, but it’s not until the end that it makes sense. As usual, buddy reading Lorac with Jessica!
February 27, 2026
Still Waters has a subtitle of 'A Lake District Mystery' although the setting is south of The Lakes in the upper Lunesdale / Morecambe Bay area, just in case you were expecting to read about Scafell, Derwentwater, and Borrowdale.
Anyway, this book is a mystery story with no murders involved, although two people do receive a smack on the head and obtain more sleep than they'd have liked.
An artist buys a house in a remotish spot. Other people make an offer but this is turned down. There's a quarry pond nearby and this small stretch of water is of great interest to some characters who attack an architect standing nearby minding his own business.
Chief Inspector MacDonald is in the area investigating a smuggling gang. A local person has gone missing and a non-local is suspected of killing him by the local amateur sleuth.
There's a lot of suspense as people creep around empty houses and the fells and valleys of the area, trying to find out why the pond is of interest. A policeman is left for dead but he's OK and snores his way through the rest of the book, but the reader will not as there's a big scene in the dark towards the end where a number of arrests are made and we discover no one has died.
Anyway, this book is a mystery story with no murders involved, although two people do receive a smack on the head and obtain more sleep than they'd have liked.
An artist buys a house in a remotish spot. Other people make an offer but this is turned down. There's a quarry pond nearby and this small stretch of water is of great interest to some characters who attack an architect standing nearby minding his own business.
Chief Inspector MacDonald is in the area investigating a smuggling gang. A local person has gone missing and a non-local is suspected of killing him by the local amateur sleuth.
There's a lot of suspense as people creep around empty houses and the fells and valleys of the area, trying to find out why the pond is of interest. A policeman is left for dead but he's OK and snores his way through the rest of the book, but the reader will not as there's a big scene in the dark towards the end where a number of arrests are made and we discover no one has died.
March 8, 2026
Been looking forward to this one, pre-ordered as the last to be republished of Lorac's stories of remote rural Lunesdale, my favourites of her work.
The mystery here is meh or mid or whatever. The final suspense sequence is technically ingenious, but I found it emotionally uninvolving.
Yet I still enjoyed the book quite a bit because of its deep and rich integration between plot and lovely remote setting. Quarries and pools and an old crumbling cottage and a larger old house abandoned but fixable so nicely -- so much charm. May we all experience such settings.
The mystery here is meh or mid or whatever. The final suspense sequence is technically ingenious, but I found it emotionally uninvolving.
Yet I still enjoyed the book quite a bit because of its deep and rich integration between plot and lovely remote setting. Quarries and pools and an old crumbling cottage and a larger old house abandoned but fixable so nicely -- so much charm. May we all experience such settings.
January 8, 2026
Another enjoyable Lorac set in North Lancashire. The way the landscape and the rural way of life shape the mystery is her strength.
November 2, 2017
For my full review click on the link below:
https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress...
https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress...
January 29, 2026
3.5* as I didn’t like the ending
February 16, 2026
I already knew and admired ECR Lorac and Robert Macdonald when I came to read this. This is one of her later novels and probably comes the closest to being autobiographical, A woman, both author and painter, comes to Lunesdale and tries to buy a secluded property near her friends, the Hoggetts, who have already featured in "The Theft of the Iron Dogs". Despite problems from the beginning, Carol is successful in her bid at the auction and "Broadgarth" is hers. However, that is only the beginning of the problems. The property has surrounding land, a rundown cottage and a large pool which is a flooded quarry.
As in the earlier book, Giles Hoggett is a mixture of very accurate observation, careful thinking - his "detective skills" - and a vivid imagination. As before, Kate, his wife tries to keep his imagination in check whilst respecting his insights and honesty. The book revolves around how apparently ordinary and disparate events are interpreted, Did someone trip or were they pushed? Has anyone been hiding in the area? Why is an empty house warm when no one has been there?
This sort of trivial detail should be boring but the author keeps the reader just on the edge of wondering if there is more than appears, or not. While Giles is ever ready to imagine that a missing person is dead, there is no real evidence that anyone ihas been killed and no one really knows what the dark waters of the quarry pool contain.
In real life there are no dramatic lighting changes and length pauses or even dramatic drumrolls or suspenseful music just before the cliff hanger. Instead, violence happens unexpectedly, ordinary people have to carry on with work whilst in the midst of suffering, because the cows can't just be left unmilked. Unlike country house mysteries, the suspects (and the police) have to make their own breakfast and get on with their work, they can't retire to the drawing room while Scotland Yard looks for footprints on the lawn.
Also, unlke her own "Two Way Murder", which is narrowly and tightly focused on one event in a foggy district, this novel takes a wider view, not only does the author refer to the landscape as a major factor in the narrative but the investigation involves a lot of travel and involves a number of people from "Away" as the farmers call anywhere outside their immediate area. This not only provides depth and background to the crime and victim but it also somewhat reduces the sense of idyllic isolation that has built up in the previous two novels. Macdonald first arrives in "Fell Murder" and part of the horror and fascination of that narrative is the fact that murder should occur in such an isolated and self-sufficient community. While Lorac clearly loves the area, she doesn't pretend it is either a paradise or that it is entirely insulated from the outside world. Indeed, she goes further than her previous books, in that Broadgarth is based on a real place and the basic features are as they really were in the 1940s, although things have changed drastically since.
In reality, the Hoggetts, who are Carol's friends in the novel, are based on Lorac's sister and her husband. Lorac (in reality Edith Caroline Rivett) actually emulated her fictional heroine in that she moved to Lancashire and lived with, rather than near, her sister and brother in law. So she must have been entirely aware of how the post-war world was impacting the rural landscape. As with the previous book, "The Theft of the Iron Dogs", time as well as place is vitally important in both the setting and the unfolding of this novel.
This story is set a few years after the war and the country is still recovering, officialdom and rationing are still major aspects of everyday life, for farmers as for city folk, even if the farmers have rather more eggs and other foodstuffs than can be found in town! Both the crime and its solution revolve around this reality, which would have been entirely real to its first readers.
For the older ones amongst readers, they will have their own memories or they will remember the stories from parents and grandparents. For younger readers, it may take some effort to imagine rationing continuing to have an impact for years after Britain emerged on the winning side but it is worth that effort if only to see how the author embeds her story in a real world of shortages and struggle rather than wrapping it in the secure box of a large country mansion. Do not misunderstand me. I love the classic Christie and Sayers middle and upper class country house tales and I absolutely love complicated and odd murders and locked rooms. But they are escapism pure and simple. Lorac, in a sense, transcends them by bringing the escapism into a real landscape without losing the escapism or the realism. She manages to bridge the gap between the idealised puzzles of the early golden age and the rather too horrific modern novels that might as well be news reports. As such she provides a unique kind of entertainment whilst still opening a door into the golden age itself.
As in the earlier book, Giles Hoggett is a mixture of very accurate observation, careful thinking - his "detective skills" - and a vivid imagination. As before, Kate, his wife tries to keep his imagination in check whilst respecting his insights and honesty. The book revolves around how apparently ordinary and disparate events are interpreted, Did someone trip or were they pushed? Has anyone been hiding in the area? Why is an empty house warm when no one has been there?
This sort of trivial detail should be boring but the author keeps the reader just on the edge of wondering if there is more than appears, or not. While Giles is ever ready to imagine that a missing person is dead, there is no real evidence that anyone ihas been killed and no one really knows what the dark waters of the quarry pool contain.
In real life there are no dramatic lighting changes and length pauses or even dramatic drumrolls or suspenseful music just before the cliff hanger. Instead, violence happens unexpectedly, ordinary people have to carry on with work whilst in the midst of suffering, because the cows can't just be left unmilked. Unlike country house mysteries, the suspects (and the police) have to make their own breakfast and get on with their work, they can't retire to the drawing room while Scotland Yard looks for footprints on the lawn.
Also, unlke her own "Two Way Murder", which is narrowly and tightly focused on one event in a foggy district, this novel takes a wider view, not only does the author refer to the landscape as a major factor in the narrative but the investigation involves a lot of travel and involves a number of people from "Away" as the farmers call anywhere outside their immediate area. This not only provides depth and background to the crime and victim but it also somewhat reduces the sense of idyllic isolation that has built up in the previous two novels. Macdonald first arrives in "Fell Murder" and part of the horror and fascination of that narrative is the fact that murder should occur in such an isolated and self-sufficient community. While Lorac clearly loves the area, she doesn't pretend it is either a paradise or that it is entirely insulated from the outside world. Indeed, she goes further than her previous books, in that Broadgarth is based on a real place and the basic features are as they really were in the 1940s, although things have changed drastically since.
In reality, the Hoggetts, who are Carol's friends in the novel, are based on Lorac's sister and her husband. Lorac (in reality Edith Caroline Rivett) actually emulated her fictional heroine in that she moved to Lancashire and lived with, rather than near, her sister and brother in law. So she must have been entirely aware of how the post-war world was impacting the rural landscape. As with the previous book, "The Theft of the Iron Dogs", time as well as place is vitally important in both the setting and the unfolding of this novel.
This story is set a few years after the war and the country is still recovering, officialdom and rationing are still major aspects of everyday life, for farmers as for city folk, even if the farmers have rather more eggs and other foodstuffs than can be found in town! Both the crime and its solution revolve around this reality, which would have been entirely real to its first readers.
For the older ones amongst readers, they will have their own memories or they will remember the stories from parents and grandparents. For younger readers, it may take some effort to imagine rationing continuing to have an impact for years after Britain emerged on the winning side but it is worth that effort if only to see how the author embeds her story in a real world of shortages and struggle rather than wrapping it in the secure box of a large country mansion. Do not misunderstand me. I love the classic Christie and Sayers middle and upper class country house tales and I absolutely love complicated and odd murders and locked rooms. But they are escapism pure and simple. Lorac, in a sense, transcends them by bringing the escapism into a real landscape without losing the escapism or the realism. She manages to bridge the gap between the idealised puzzles of the early golden age and the rather too horrific modern novels that might as well be news reports. As such she provides a unique kind of entertainment whilst still opening a door into the golden age itself.
February 24, 2026
Two and a half stars.
A rather slow and tortuous story by Lorac's standards. The writing is beautiful as usual and all the topographical details are very accurate (with the place names changed) according to Martin Edwards in his introduction.
However, it was fairly easy to figure out what was going on. The Goodreads synopsis gives enough detail of the plot and it would be rather difficult to say more without spoiling.
I don't think it's one of her best.
A rather slow and tortuous story by Lorac's standards. The writing is beautiful as usual and all the topographical details are very accurate (with the place names changed) according to Martin Edwards in his introduction.
However, it was fairly easy to figure out what was going on. The Goodreads synopsis gives enough detail of the plot and it would be rather difficult to say more without spoiling.
I don't think it's one of her best.
December 12, 2025
A really delightful and engaging book. I particularly enjoyed the various (and clearly inaccurate!) theories postulated by assorted characters as they each twirled the facts to fit their own bias.
Exceptionally well told.
Exceptionally well told.
February 19, 2026
I love the Inspector McDonald books
Golden age crime novel set in that beautiful area between Lancashire and the Lake District. The main characters are delightful and the plot complex, crime but no murder this time!
Golden age crime novel set in that beautiful area between Lancashire and the Lake District. The main characters are delightful and the plot complex, crime but no murder this time!
December 31, 2025
Really a 2-star mystery, but I'm feeling generous so I'm giving it a third star for sheer atmosphere/setting, and a fourth for one of the cleverest titles I've ever seen (read to find out why.)
January 7, 2026
Good.
As always. I find having to write a specified number of words very tedious, when I have said all that needs saying in the first three of them.
As always. I find having to write a specified number of words very tedious, when I have said all that needs saying in the first three of them.
January 12, 2026
i didn't really get it. I'll read it again the the future but the still water name was clever
February 28, 2026
An enjoyable adventure, with a great sense of place. But did Caroline ever finish her hotel commission?
November 28, 2025
An atmospheric mystery set in the Lake District. Well worth reading. Lorax is up to her usual standard.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews