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Mike Yeager #2
Chillwater Cove
FBI special agent Peggy Weaver was ten years old when her best friend was abducted while they were riding their bikes through their small hometown in Tennessee. Peggy ran and escaped, but Samantha didn’t. She was eventually found and brought home, but her rescue came only after something so terrible happened that she could never speak about it, even to Peggy. And the kidnapper was never caught.
Though Samantha’s family forgave Peggy for running and her father admitted that she had done the smart thing, she’s always wished that she could have helped Samantha. Terrified at the time, Peggy couldn’t remember much besides the make of the car—not the license plate, not what the man looked like. She never has remembered anything else, and she’ll never forgive herself.
Now, twenty-five years later, pornographic photos of ten-year-old Samantha have turned up as evidence in one of Peggy’s cases, a clear message from a man who’s never paid for what he did, and Peggy knows that this time she isn’t going to run.
With his riveting debut, The Shadow Catchers, Thomas Lakeman proved himself to be one of the best new crime writers, and he follows that up with Chillwater Cove, a heart-stopping sequel in his Mike Yeager and Peggy Weaver series. Loyalties may run deep but secrets can run even deeper...
Though Samantha’s family forgave Peggy for running and her father admitted that she had done the smart thing, she’s always wished that she could have helped Samantha. Terrified at the time, Peggy couldn’t remember much besides the make of the car—not the license plate, not what the man looked like. She never has remembered anything else, and she’ll never forgive herself.
Now, twenty-five years later, pornographic photos of ten-year-old Samantha have turned up as evidence in one of Peggy’s cases, a clear message from a man who’s never paid for what he did, and Peggy knows that this time she isn’t going to run.
With his riveting debut, The Shadow Catchers, Thomas Lakeman proved himself to be one of the best new crime writers, and he follows that up with Chillwater Cove, a heart-stopping sequel in his Mike Yeager and Peggy Weaver series. Loyalties may run deep but secrets can run even deeper...
325 pages, Hardcover
First published November 27, 2007
6 people are currently reading
243 people want to read
About the author
Thomas Lakeman
4 books8 followersIt took me four years to research, write, and revise my first novel, The Shadow Catchers, and it would be another two years before the book was published by St. Martin's Press. The dream of being a writer has been with me for a considerably longer time.
By the time I was five years old, I'd mapped out exactly what I was going to do with my life: I would be (in no particular order) a Superhero, an Astronaut, and a Mad Scientist. Two years later, I'd added Actor and Cartoonist to the list. By the end of the fifth grade, I'd finally decided that I could accomplish all of these by telling stories for a living. The darker, the better.
I'm not exactly sure when my fascination with the shadow side began. Probably with that collection of Batman comics. When I was eight years old, I read George Orwell's Animal Farm, thinking it was a happy kiddie story like Charlotte's Web. To this day, whenever I see one of those movies about talking pigs who save the farm, I remember Napoleon the hog sending Boxer the horse to the butcher's in exchange for a barrel of whiskey. And I go make myself a nice ham sandwich with pork rinds.
I was born in Mobile, Alabama, on March 10, 1964, the youngest of six children. My parents made sure we all got an education. After high school I attended the University of the South, a liberal arts school owned by the Episcopal Church. Popularly known as Sewanee, the college allowed me to pursue all my interests, as well as helping to develop new ones. After earning my B.A. I studied Theatre in Great Britain and Ireland on a Thomas J. Watson fellowship, then received my M.F.A. in Playwriting from Carnegie-Mellon University.
My first real job was in the marketing department at Universal Pictures, where I got to do just about everything, from publicity to speechwriting and creative design. In 1994 I helped start Digital Planet, one of the first Internet design firms to specialize in entertainment marketing. My business partner and I had already created the first interactive movie press kit (for Sneakers) and were soon designing sites and DVDS for all the major studios, as well as corporate clients like Intel and the United States Postal Service. We also produced the Internet's first fully animated series, Madeleine's Mind. In 1998, Digital Planet was acquired by a corporate parent. I stayed on for two years as L.A. creative director, then took a brief stint at another company, DNA Studio. I left the business not long after the dotcom bust of 2000. I'm very happy I had my California adventure...and I'm not sorry it ended. I knew I had to move on if I was going to make my fiction career happen.
After four challenging and invigorating years teaching Literature and Creative Writing at the University of South Alabama, I decided to devote myself to writing full-time. Currently I'm living on the Alabama Gulf Coast, working on my fourth novel while preparing for the March 2009 publication of Broken Wing. My latest adventure has returned me to my early love of the theatre: next year I am honored to serve as the Tennessee Williams playwright-in-residence at my alma mater, Sewanee.
By the time I was five years old, I'd mapped out exactly what I was going to do with my life: I would be (in no particular order) a Superhero, an Astronaut, and a Mad Scientist. Two years later, I'd added Actor and Cartoonist to the list. By the end of the fifth grade, I'd finally decided that I could accomplish all of these by telling stories for a living. The darker, the better.
I'm not exactly sure when my fascination with the shadow side began. Probably with that collection of Batman comics. When I was eight years old, I read George Orwell's Animal Farm, thinking it was a happy kiddie story like Charlotte's Web. To this day, whenever I see one of those movies about talking pigs who save the farm, I remember Napoleon the hog sending Boxer the horse to the butcher's in exchange for a barrel of whiskey. And I go make myself a nice ham sandwich with pork rinds.
I was born in Mobile, Alabama, on March 10, 1964, the youngest of six children. My parents made sure we all got an education. After high school I attended the University of the South, a liberal arts school owned by the Episcopal Church. Popularly known as Sewanee, the college allowed me to pursue all my interests, as well as helping to develop new ones. After earning my B.A. I studied Theatre in Great Britain and Ireland on a Thomas J. Watson fellowship, then received my M.F.A. in Playwriting from Carnegie-Mellon University.
My first real job was in the marketing department at Universal Pictures, where I got to do just about everything, from publicity to speechwriting and creative design. In 1994 I helped start Digital Planet, one of the first Internet design firms to specialize in entertainment marketing. My business partner and I had already created the first interactive movie press kit (for Sneakers) and were soon designing sites and DVDS for all the major studios, as well as corporate clients like Intel and the United States Postal Service. We also produced the Internet's first fully animated series, Madeleine's Mind. In 1998, Digital Planet was acquired by a corporate parent. I stayed on for two years as L.A. creative director, then took a brief stint at another company, DNA Studio. I left the business not long after the dotcom bust of 2000. I'm very happy I had my California adventure...and I'm not sorry it ended. I knew I had to move on if I was going to make my fiction career happen.
After four challenging and invigorating years teaching Literature and Creative Writing at the University of South Alabama, I decided to devote myself to writing full-time. Currently I'm living on the Alabama Gulf Coast, working on my fourth novel while preparing for the March 2009 publication of Broken Wing. My latest adventure has returned me to my early love of the theatre: next year I am honored to serve as the Tennessee Williams playwright-in-residence at my alma mater, Sewanee.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
April 26, 2022
Well this seemed everywhere and nowhere at the same time. At times i couldnt tell if peggy was an amateur fbi agent or experienced. Tried to make too many ppl seem like the bad guy and the good guy at the same time. Didnt much fancy it in the end,
September 12, 2008
Blach! Scattered. The story was so scattered....shooting off into 15 different directions and non of the story directions kept me reading. At about 50 pages from the end I got so tired of the various angles and just wanted to know the basic ending I actually skipped to the 10 pages! I've stopped reading books before but I've never skipped to the end before. Well, I guess it says something that i at least wanted to know the end....just didn't want to ahve to read through the endless story to get there.
July 30, 2015
In Chillwater Cove, Thomas Lakeman gives us a thriller/mystery with so many plot twists it will make your head spin. In addition to excellent prose and crisp dialogue we are treated to a very strong lead female character Peggy Weaver. Peggy and her friend Samantha were riding their bikes twenty years ago when Samantha was kidnapped and tortured. In the present day, Peggy is an FBI Special Agent in Philadelphia bringing down a child slavery ring. After the raid, she discovers pictures of Samantha from 25 years ago that were taken while she was abducted and abused. She returns to her hometown of Avalon, Tennessee to meet with Samantha and decide if they should go after the man who was never caught or charged for her abduction. Then Samantha is kidnapped again and Peggy opens an investigation into the disappearance. The history of her hometown is hiding many secrets and Peggy must use her training to unravel the towns history and unsavory hidden alliances. To good effect, Lakeman pulls apart the history and alliances much like a chef peels back the layers of an onion. Peggy's dad Rusty Weaver is the chief of police for Avalon and while his relationship with Peggy is adversarial he still seems to love her. But then, it becomes clear that her father may be part of the problem and that by unraveling the history of the town and her dad's own life history she is putting herself squarely in the bull's-eye of the abductor and the powerful alliances that hide Avalon's dark secrets. Highly recommended to anyone who likes a well-paced and well-written thriller/mystery.
April 17, 2012
I enjoyed this book, and I'm in the process of reading Thomas Lakeman's first novel The Shadow Catchers, because of this book.
It's about a kidnapping that happened many years ago. Two young girl friends come across a creepy guy, he ends up taking the friend, and the other girl (Peggy Weaver) ends up running away. The friend is found, her family forgives Peggy for running and live goes on...many years later, Peggy is an FBI agent, comes home, and her friend disappears again.
I thought there were a lot of plot faults in this book, and one thing that totally annoyed me was the relationship (or lack thereof) between Peggy and her cop dad. I would've been OUTTA THERE, but she kept up her relationship with her dad, working with him on this case, although she suspects he has something to do with it. He basically treats her like crap, and she keeps coming back. Blah.
Overall, though, it was a good read, and as I've said, I'm reading the author's first book.
It's about a kidnapping that happened many years ago. Two young girl friends come across a creepy guy, he ends up taking the friend, and the other girl (Peggy Weaver) ends up running away. The friend is found, her family forgives Peggy for running and live goes on...many years later, Peggy is an FBI agent, comes home, and her friend disappears again.
I thought there were a lot of plot faults in this book, and one thing that totally annoyed me was the relationship (or lack thereof) between Peggy and her cop dad. I would've been OUTTA THERE, but she kept up her relationship with her dad, working with him on this case, although she suspects he has something to do with it. He basically treats her like crap, and she keeps coming back. Blah.
Overall, though, it was a good read, and as I've said, I'm reading the author's first book.
May 26, 2019
I could barely finish this book. Cliches and ridiculous Southern stereotypes are always terrible, but when they come from an actual Southerner, it's especially disappointing.
January 15, 2009
I do not ordinarily read crime novels, but was drawn to CHILLWATER COVE because I grew up in Tennessee and graduated from a university eerily similar to the fictional Avalon College. This book grabbed me from the start, and I ended up reading it until the wee hours of the morning. It has great pacing, heart-pounding suspense, and characters who are so well-fleshed out you can almost reach out and touch them. The novel puts the reader through the emotional wringer because you come to care about these people. Although the novel is frightening and sometimes violent, the ending is quite gratifying.
Lakeman has chosen to approach the American South and the Tennessee mountain communities in a measured and nuanced way - leaving in all the gray areas most choose to ignore. Lakeman does indeed have the pacing of Dan Brown, but with literary chops as well! I believe I have stumbled upon the next James Lee Burke. I look forward to reading Lakeman's next novel in this series, BROKEN WING.
Lakeman has chosen to approach the American South and the Tennessee mountain communities in a measured and nuanced way - leaving in all the gray areas most choose to ignore. Lakeman does indeed have the pacing of Dan Brown, but with literary chops as well! I believe I have stumbled upon the next James Lee Burke. I look forward to reading Lakeman's next novel in this series, BROKEN WING.
October 13, 2009
I have to say that I enjoyed the first book in this series a lot more. It may be due to the fact that I fell in love with Mike Yeager in the SHADOW CATCHERS and he only plays a minor role in this book. I would have liked to have seen a little more depth to Peggy's character and background. Even though CHILLWATER COVE focuses on her almost exclusively, I didn't feel like I really got to KNOW her like I did Mike. Still, as far as the story goes, it was exciting and as in SC there are lots of twists and turns. And of course, the southern setting was well written. Having grown up in the south, several of the characters were very familiar. Looking forward to reading BROKEN WING as soon as my TR pile goes down a bit!
January 30, 2012
In The Shadow Catchers Lakeman introduced Mike Yeager and had a secondary character, Peggy Weaver, that was his former girlfriend/lover and boss. In this outing Peggy takes center stage and Yeager plays a small supporting role. As before with Yeager, Lakeman does of a good job of developing the Weaver character beyond what you saw in the first book. And as before, the story proceeds through twists and turns with the occasional red herring thrown in. Also, as before you are kept wondering if several characters are good or bad. The story is well written and was a quick read with a nicely drawn conclusion - or so you think.
July 28, 2009
I read Broken Wing which was by the same author so I thought I would give this book a try. It is basically a prequel to Broken Wing as the same main characters are in both books. It is a good read. Finished it in 2 days.
January 22, 2014
CHILLWATER COVE - FALL FROM GRACE SERIES
Fresh out of undercover training, Agent Roy Hansen is ready to take on the world. Or at least he thought he was until his first assignment. While doubting his reasons for joining the FBI, he meets a beautiful co-ed with her own problems.
Fresh out of undercover training, Agent Roy Hansen is ready to take on the world. Or at least he thought he was until his first assignment. While doubting his reasons for joining the FBI, he meets a beautiful co-ed with her own problems.
February 17, 2017
I almost didn't finish reading this one. It went off in a hundred different directions, most of which were improbable. Also hard to believe that the main character had no recollection of anything, yet it all came flooding back at *just the right moment.* Blech. Not recommended.
August 1, 2008
too scary for me
September 6, 2008
I chose it b/c it's set in TN, but I couldn't really buy into it. Good story line, interesting characters w/ all sorts of family conflict.
February 3, 2009
Didn't even finish it...not good enough to keep me wanting to pick it up again.
September 5, 2011
Good suspense story. Will definately keep reading him!
November 6, 2011
this book kept me reading and could not stop
January 30, 2012
What a great read that kept me guessing.
February 11, 2012
the plot seems a bit weak for my reading enjoyment. Not on my memorable book list.
November 4, 2012
The best reason to read this book is for the description of southern small town life. The father as the main figure in this setting is well drawn.
September 28, 2013
This book is definitely a page-turner. Like most good thrillers, you really don't know who is the good guy or the bad guy until the end. I would definitely read more by this author!
June 29, 2015
I liked it and will read more by Mr.Lakeman.
August 22, 2016
I love thrillers & this book did not disappoint. I could not put down until I found out what happened to characters. If you like thrillers, a must read. I really enjoyed this book.
August 16, 2015
Well worth a read! I didn't figure it out until the end ... And that's fairly rare :)
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews