The Girl in the Lake
A Holmes, Margaret & Poe Mystery #3
by James Patterson and Brian Sitts

Release date: October 27th, 2026
🌟🌟🌟🌟
(3.5 rounded up)
I received a complimentary ARC copy of The Girl In The Lake (A Holmes, Margaret & Poe Mystery#3), by James Patterson and Brian Sitts from Net Galley and Little, Brown and Company/Hachette Book Group in order to read and give an honest review.
...”Once again, Patterson and Sitts created an entertaining, fun and fast paced read…”
If you have been keeping up with James Patterson and Brian Sitts’ series about a trio of private investigators who share the most iconic surnames in detective history, you know these books are always a fun and fast-paced ride. In The Girl in the Lake, the third entry in the series, Brendan Holmes, Margaret Marple, and Auguste Poe return but they are quite different in this installment, they are no longer the tight-knit team they used to be back in Manhattan which in my opinion is a shame.
Having fled to a quiet lodge in upper New York state after their Manhattan office was bombed in the previous book, the group is trying to lay low and put themselves back together. This time around they are carrying even more personal baggage too. Holmes is wrestling with maintaining his sobriety with his heroin addiction, Poe is fighting alcoholism while preparing for twins with former NYPD detective Helene Grey, and Marple is dealing with serious heartbreak while carving out a new path, a path away from Holmes. Add in their quirky young assistant Virginia and her trusty mastiff Baskerville, and you have a full house of wonderfully eccentric personalities trying to navigate non-stop chaos.
Naturally, trouble catches up with them fast. When a body pulled from a local frozen lake turns out to be missing woman Celia Rogers, the guys cannot resist getting involved. But things get complicated when a note inside the victim’s wallet reads: “If I’m dead, arrest Brendan Holmes.”
It turns out their nemesis, serial killer Oliver Paul, has tracked them right to their hideout. Paul sets a trap for Holmes to force a bizarre trade: get his wife out of prison, or watch a lot more people die unless they meet his demand and the cat and mouse game continues on a wild twisty ride.
Once again, Patterson and Sitts created an entertaining, fun and fast paced read, but if you’re looking for something more cerebral this might not be for you. Due to the fact so much of the plot hinges on the ongoing cat-and-mouse game with Oliver Paul and the trio’s complicated history, you really need to read the previous books in the series to get the background to appreciate where everyone is at mentally. Although it ends on a high note, the last paragraph’s cliffhanger suggests that something big is around the corner, but next time they will have so much more to lose.









