The God of the Woods

The God of the Woods

Finishing this on MLK Day 2025, which also happens to be Inauguration Day in the United States.  The God of the Woods is a murder mystery and I'm about 86% of the way done with the book so I thought this would be a good stopping point to see if I can figure out who done it.  

As a recap, the story centers around the Van Laar family.  This is an old school patrician family with ties to Yale to reinforce the blue blood genes.  They are portrayed as multi-generational with the first generation having built up the camp / compound in upstate NY that the family now calls home.  There are two "murders" the first of the eldest son Bear, who represents the forth generation of Van Laars.  His death was never quite resolved in 1961.  His mom Alice has developed quite a mental state and drinking and pill habit thinking Bear is still alive.  We are transported to Bear's disspearance and to present day which is 1975 where Barbara who was conceived following Bear's death is now missing from the family's camp.  

Along the way we have been introduced to characters who may have led to Barbara's death and also possibly Bear's death about 14 years earlier.  The first of these is an escaped convict Jacob Slitter.  We are told Jacob is a serial killer who was caught aroud the time of Bear's death and by extension could be his killer.  He also conveniently escaped jail and was in the vicinity when Barbara went missing.  He is now caught and like Hanibal Lector to Jodie Foster is about to reveal the whereabouts of Bear.  So the reader is left with the impression that this most obvious of choices is not the perpetrator.   

We are also told that the police and the family settled on the choice of Bear's death to be one Carl Stoddard.  Carl had the misfortune of bieng the last to see Bear.  They also found a whittling that presumably Carl had taught Bear to make and pinned the murder on Carl.  Carl conveniently died of a heart attack so there wasn't much of an investigation as dead men don't talk.  

One of the the other prime candidates is the son of the family lawyer,  John Paul.  The main evidence against John Paul is that he was caught the Day after Barbara's dissappearance speeding away in his blue Trans Am with coke and a bloody shirt stuffed in a plastic bag.  We have yet to find out if the blood matches that of Barbara.  John Paul, through his father, has said that he was told to put the bloody shirt in the car by his girlfriend Louise.  Louise is a townie and a counselor in training at the camp.  She also is arrested on suspicion for among other things being caught in a lie trying to stand up for Anabel who was supposed to be looking out for the campers but instead got drunk as a skunk and puked in a bag that the police literally shoved back in Louise's face.  Towards the end we find out that Maryanne Stoddard, wife of Carl Stoddard bailed out Loiuse and said she didn't want the same fate to happen to her that befell her husband.  Another suspect is Lee Towson who has a history of statutory rape and who Louise has a crush on.  

Another nefarious character is the father Peter Van Laar.  We have just found out the Peter has been cheating on his wife Alice with her sister Delfine.  That Alice had known about this since 1961 when she was looking for Bear.  Along the way we foound that Peter had been aloof with both Bear and Barbara.  Barbara was the exceptionally troubling rebellious child.  Most recently she had painted her room with an intricate mural that her parents had painted over for the 100th aniversary of the family estate and which is about to be unlayered by a art custodian revealing what is likely to be a clue. It would seem both Peter and also Delfine were in the vicinity for both disappearances and had a motive to off the kids.  

Several other primary characters need to be brought in.  TJ is the head Counselor and who is described as a lesbian and who we are told was visited by Barbara every night.  We initially were told by Tracy, Barbara's room mate and best friend at camp that Barbara would leave every night for a nocturnal visit to what we presumed was her boyfriend.  Yet later we find that it is TJ that Barbara has been seeing during the Camps signature Survival days.  We had earlier been told that Louise had developed a crush on her, which TJ rebuffed.  TJ's father Vic Hewlett was the camp director when Bear was missing so there is a family history around both deaths.  Bear's grandmother tells the lead female investigator - Judyta, to find him so at this point in the story there is some intrigue on him and her.  

At this point, I'm going to rule out all these suspects and go with Alice the mom.  Medea complex.  We still have the bloody clothes, Jacob will leading us to Bear and more evidence on the way, so I can be way off... 

I finished the book and guess what --- you will have to read it to find out if I was correct...  you weren't expecting spoilers?  

Good book - yes - pretty quick read once all the characters were introduced.  There is always in a murder mystery some obvious wrong answers this book follows that formula.  The ending brings closure to one part of the story and justice is merited out.  I'll go out on a limb and say it was somewhat mistakenly doled out in this case as the authors biases against rich people and for poor "townies" does come forth in the the administration of it.