'The Assumption'

In this thriller a younger aged, generally conservative businessman becomes entangled in a spiral of death and danger while confronting his own dissatisfaction with the direction his life seems to be heading. Todd Atkinson has lived at his boyhood lake home since he was ten years old. Never committing to marriage, he's gotten used to and prefers his routine rather predictable life style taking fewer major risks and causing what he believes fewer problems. Then at age thirty his life begins to throw him a few curves, in particular a tragic death of a female friend at the very lake where he lives. Authorities rule it an accidental death; Atkinson knows otherwise, but believes he could make himself into a key suspect if he shares what he knows. He also realizes he could even become a target of the actual killer if he no longer maintains his silence and shares with the authorities what he'd witnessed.

Though he believes he knows who committed the murder, as days turn to weeks his fear and apprehension continue to keep him from talking with investigators about what he knows. The guilt he feels from his silence eventually builds an obsession in him to find the man he believes committed the crime. In the process his staid life style gradually breaks down as he engages in riskier and more threatening actions making the familiar Todd Atkinson over time barely recognizable.

J. L. Larson, a graduate of the University of Minnesota, worked in legal publishing and now is a private options trader. He is the author of the threepart Minnesota Lake Series novels, 'The Raid at Lake Minnewaska', 'The Disappearance of Henry Hanson', and 'The Choices of Adam Bailey'. He also authored a collection of Minnesota related short stories, 'The Accident at Sanborn Corners....And Other Minnesota Short Stories'. He and his wife currently reside at Lake Norman in North Carolina.