About The Inland Sea
The Inland Sea is a mystery story, set in a sequestered part of Lake Champlain known as the Inland Sea. It’s about people, families, who have spent their life there. A successful young minister, Paul Brearley, part owner of Osprey Island, has spent all of his summers there, seemingly a handsome, athletic, happy person with a beautiful wife and son. But in 1990, he disappears, and is presumed drowned, though some people have their doubts.
In 2008, Brearley’s body, not yet identified, is found in a campground on nearby Burton Island, shot dead, propped up against the wall of a lean-to, as if resting from a long walk. Who shot him? What has he been doing for 18 years?
Fred Davis is the detective in charge. He grew up on a South Hero farm and knows the lake as well as anyone. As the investigation develops, Fred becomes fascinated with the little community on Osprey Island. He thinks the killing might be tied to Paul’s disappearance. But he slowly learns that the origin goes back further, to a day in 1972, when Fred and a friend were sailing a little homemade boat just outside the Inland Sea, and a boy named Skip Tyler, driving his speedboat too fast, crashes into them, nearly sinking the little sailboat. Skip blithely drives off, unconcerned. This crash sets in motion seemingly small events, which lead to Paul’s murder 36 years later.
How the book came about.
I grew up in Poughkeepsie in the Quaker Community there. Our family had a place on an island in Upper Saranac Lake, in the Adirondacks. We lost the place later, but The Island still lives in much of what I build, and certainly in The Inland Sea.
I have always been interested in the history and people of New England, and the ideas that took root here. It’s what I studied in school, and read about to this day. I have often attempted to write about this subject, and my own family’s relationship to it, but with little success. I have a drawer full of memoirs, philosophical pieces, stories, and other manuscripts that don’t quite work. But on November 4, 2008, the day Barack Obama was elected, I was hit by a car while biking, not far from my home in Plainfield, Vermont. I couldn’t do any woodworking for a few months, but I could still type. I decided to approach this material again in the form of a mystery novel.
During this period our family had a spot, with a boat, an old house-trailer and a dock in a a lakeside campground called Montani’s, on the eastern side of South Hero, Vermont. This is the part of Lake Champlain known as The Inland Sea. I love the place and also the name. It seemed natural to locate my story there.
It might seem absurd to jump from writing building books to writing a novel, but to me principles to live by, and principles to build by, aren’t that different. You could argue that constructing a detective story isn’t entirely different from constructing a build book, or a house.
Cover Image for Web Site
This photo formed the point of departure for Susan Riley’s cover painting for The Inland Sea. It’s taken from (the late lamented) Montani’s Campground on Keeler Bay, on the eastern side of South Hero, not far from the village of South Hero. It’s sunrise, maybe as early as 5 am. I saw this view many mornings from my trailer. This is the southern end of the Inland Sea.
The boat is a smaller version of the boat which Fred Davis, the detective in The Inland Sea, buys toward the beginning of the story.
I asked Susan to substitute this larger boat for the one in the photo, which wasn’t as easy as it might sound.
This photo is again the smaller boat, on the Chambly Canal. This canal follows the non-navigable parts of the Richelieu River, which connects Lake Champlain to the St. Lawrence River. This canal comes into the story later in the book.
