‘Midnight in Soap Lake’ by Matthew Sullivan

Published by HQ,
15 April 2025.
ISBN: 978-0-00866916-4 (HB)

Michael Sullivan offers one of the twistiest of twisty tales in his second novel, Midnight in Soap Lake. There are various timelines, deaths not immediately identifiable as murders, a wide cast of quirky characters who defy simple classification, and a mysterious mineral lake promising miracle cures and wondrous forms of energy that has a huge lava lamp on its shore. Presiding over the series of convoluted events and cast of tortured souls is the towering – literally – figure of ‘Treetop’, a mythical character that for decades has haunted the small American town of Soap Lake trailing disaster and death in his wake. Unusually tall, clad in concealing garments, including a mask and gloves, but, of late, wearing clothing resembling a biohazard suit, his appearance invariably signals imminent tragedy.  

Soap Lake is a real place, a town in central Washington state with a population of less than two thousand. It was once a popular destination for individuals drawn by reports of the health-giving properties of the ancient lake rich in minerals and mud who stayed at sanatorium’s on its shores or camped close by. But drought and the Depression hit, the tourist trade dried up, and it became a kind of ghost town. It was a setting that intrigued Matthew Sullivan who lived in the vicinity for sixteen years, inspiring the ambitious imaginings of his novel. 

The plot centres on two women: Abigail and Esme. Abigail, recently married, has uprooted her life to little Soap Lake to accommodate her scientist husband Eli, but she must face the challenges it poses alone as, soon after their arrival, Eli decides it would be providential for his career to take up an offer to work on a research project in Poland for six months. Going out for a jog early one morning, Abigail encounters a tiny boy with bloodied face and hands running frantically towards her who leads her to a car with a corpse in it: his mother Esme, stabbed by a screwdriver. 

Who killed her and why? Esme was a local Soap Lake girl who had fled the town eight years earlier after her boyfriend was fatally shot. The potential suspects quickly pile up in this thrilling page-turner, with Abigail increasingly facing danger herself as she investigates.

Like the best of crime fiction, Midnight in Soap Lake is not only a whodunnit but also a novel that explores existential questions such as the mystery of life and its meaning and the significance of human relations. The author’s intelligence shimmers off every page, and his use of striking metaphor and unexpected simile encourages the reader’s heightened attention. Highly recommended.
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Reviewer: Wendy Jones Nakanishi/aka Lea O’Harra

Matthew Sullivan grew up in a family of eight spirited children in suburban Denver, Colorado. In addition to working for years at the Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver and at Brookline Booksmith in Boston, he has taught writing and literature at colleges in Boston, Idaho and Poland, and currently teaches writing, literature and film at Big Bend Community College in the high desert of Washington State. He is married to a librarian and has two children.  

Lea O’Harra.  An American by birth, did her postgraduate work in Britain – an MA in Lancaster and a doctorate at Edinburgh – and worked full-time for 36 years at a Japanese university. Since retiring in March 2020, she has spent part of each year in Lancaster and part in Takamatsu on Shikoku Island, her second home, with occasional visits to the States to see family and friends. An avid reader of crime fiction since childhood, as a university professor she wrote academic articles on it as a literary genre and then decided to try her hand at composing such stories herself, publishing the so-called ‘Inspector Inoue mystery series’ comprising three murder mysteries set in rural, contemporary Japan. She has also published two standalone crime fiction novels.