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In the Lake of the Woods tells the story of John Wade, a politician who has been keeping a secret about his past for almost twenty years. John is the protagonist, and he faces both internal and external conflict as his life falls apart due to the revelation of his secret. The antagonistic forces are numerous: family members who believe John killed his wife Kathy, law enforcement officers who are suspicious of John, and John’s inner demons that make him unable to control himself. As Kathy’s sister Pat and the police search for Kathy, John confronts his repressed memories of his experience in the Vietnam War. A narrator serves as the connection between the characters and readers, and this narrator, himself a Vietnam War veteran, uses footnotes to interject his thoughts about the Wades, the war, and stories.

In the Lake of the Woods is not told in a typical chronological fashion. Instead, the narrator alternates between four types of chapters. “Evidence” chapters present a collection of quotations from interviews with friends and family, written documents, and excerpts from published books as well as exhibits including items like photographs and lists of magic tricks. “Hypothesis” chapters share one of the narrator’s theories about what happened to Kathy to cause her to disappear. “The Nature of . . .” chapters share important incidents from John Wade’s history stemming back to childhood. Each chapter is organized around one theme such as marriage or politics. The final chapter category is structured around an interrogative word; for example, the first one is titled “How Unhappy They Were” and another “How He Went Away.” These chapters focus on events starting with the week before Kathy’s disappearance and then move forward chronologically. Further, incidents often are mentioned without context, but as the reader discovers, most will be fleshed out as the book continues. The main story focuses on Kathy’s disappearance and John’s response, but numerous flashbacks are woven throughout the novel.

The story opens with a chapter setting John and Kathy in their current state, the week before she disappears. They’ve retreated to the seclusion of the cottage by Lake of the Woods after a terrible election loss. John has been a rising star in Democratic circles, but shortly before the primary election, something happened to cause him to lose in a landslide. John and Kathy are both desperately unhappy, though still in love, and they spin out stories of the better future they long for. However, on their last day at the cottage, John wakes up and discovers Kathy is missing.

While In the Lake of the Woods presents a mystery in the sense of something unknown, the crux of the novel is not what happened to Kathy, but what happened to John throughout his life that could cause him to possibly kill the woman of his dreams and then what happens next. As the son of a verbally abusive alcoholic who took his own life, John felt unloved throughout his childhood, and a desperate need for love defines him thereafter. He turned to magic tricks as a way to gain approval from others and as a way to create kinder realities where the bad things hadn’t happened.

John met Kathy in college, but before they could marry, he deployed to Vietnam to serve in the war, where he developed the persona of Sorcerer to cope with the death all around him. One day, John’s platoon massacred hundreds of old men, women, and children at Thuan Yen village, in an incident known as the My Lai massacre. During this brutal event, Sorcerer shot an old man with a hoe and a private in his company. While both shootings were reflexive, John couldn’t get the images out of his head. To live with what he had done and witnessed, Sorcerer came up with the trick of simply forgetting any of it ever happened. As Sorcerer, John repressed his memories, and later when working in a military office, he also erased any record of his name from Charlie Company rolls.

When John returned to the United States, he and Kathy married, and he pursued his political career. He easily won office repeatedly until he ran in the Senate primary and his opponent found out about his past. The revelation of his role in My Lai is the inciting incident that leads to numerous conflicts, both external and internal. John suffers a humiliating defeat in the polls as well as the end of his political career, and his dark secret is now exposed to Kathy. John and Kathy, who had been suffering marital difficulties already, go to the cottage to try to salvage their marriage. But instead, they argue one day, and then Kathy disappears.

Little in the way of actual plot happens after that event until the climax takes place. Many people search for Kathy every day. Law enforcement officials question John. And John tries to sort through his fractured memories of what happened that night. He only remembers a few moments clearly. He shouted, “Kill Jesus!” He killed the houseplants with boiling water. He went into the bedroom he shared with Kathy with a full teakettle. He dove into the lake. Yet Kathy does not figure in these memories. This scene is so crucial that some version of it is explored through three different chapters: the night as John remembers it, a hypothesis chapter in which Kathy witnesses these events, and another hypothesis chapter in which John kills Kathy by pouring boiling water in her eyes and then dumps her body in the lake to make her disappear. These chapters are spread throughout the book, so readers don’t have a full picture until close to the end of the novel.

After several weeks of boats and planes looking for Kathy, the official search ends. The police intend to turn their attention closer to home, to the cottage where John is still staying. When John finds this out, he gets some supplies, takes a boat, and goes out to look for Kathy by himself. This event represents the climax of the story. John sails the boat north, into Canadian waters. He speaks to Claude on the radio. He broadcasts his memories of Kathy on the same radio, which are heard by police officers. He never confesses or indicates that he knows where Kathy is. Then, like his wife, John disappears. He might have fled to Canada. He might have died. He might have found Kathy so they could start a new life together. There is no conclusive ending because that is the truest end.

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