The Girl From The Lake - Mikel Santiago

Bestselling thriller writer Mikel Santiago brings readers his latest work, La chica del lago (ISBN 978 84 666 8273-2). Successful author Quintana Torres is thriving in the public eye, known as “the new queen of the thriller”. But her world is upended when an old high-school classmate hands her a mysterious black envelope during a signing event in Bilbao. Inside is a photograph of a diary belonging to Alba, a teenager who died under strange circumstances in 1999 — the very case that inspired Quintana’s earlier novel.

Forced to cancel her promotional tour, Quintana returns to her father’s old house in Urkizu, a small interior Basque-Country village, the scene of the 1999 disappearance. As she explores the past, she realises that buried secrets refuse to stay hidden. The investigation shifts seamlessly between Madrid, Bilbao and Urkizu, revealing how the echoes of one summer’s night can reshape countless lives.

With 688 pages of taut, relentless suspense, the novel’s structure weaves past and present, memory and trauma, and the slow unravelling of truth. Mikel Santiago reunites his skill for atmospheric setting, psychological tension and unpredictable plot-turns to create a compelling narrative that will keep readers on edge until the final page.

Whether you’re a long-time fan of Santiago’s Illumbe trilogy or new to his work, La chica del lago stands out as a dense, immersive thriller that asks: can we ever truly escape our history?