Lakeside

Lakeside is a novel by Keigo Higashino set against the backdrop of family ties and children's education; its original Japanese title is Reikusaido. To get their children into prestigious private schools, four families bring them to a lakeside villa for a pre-exam study camp. Minako, wife of Shunsuke Namiki, is among them, though Shunsuke has never cared much about his son's schooling. During the camp, Shunsuke's mistress, Eriko Takashina, suddenly appears at the villa and is found dead in a room late at night. Minako confesses on the spot, "I killed her." Shunsuke instinctively wants to call the police, but the other parents desperately talk him out of it. Citing the need not to ruin the children's exams, they clean up the scene together and sink the body to the bottom of the lake, and Shunsuke, under pressure, is drawn into the collective cover-up. Yet the more he recalls the details, the more he senses that the calm and coordination of those around him defy reason: why would these parents take such risks for a murder suspect? Making quiet inquiries, he gradually uncovers hidden deals and exchanges among the families and turns his questions toward the seemingly innocent children at the villa. Using the competition for school admission as its entry point, the novel peels back layer by layer the anxiety, respectability, complicity, and sacrifice of the parents, asking what their so-called love actually protects and what it teaches their children. When the truth comes out, Shunsuke can no longer walk away unscathed; what lies at the bottom of the lake is not only a corpse but the lives of these families, which can never return to what they were.