This is a picture of the Crown Point Lighthouse I took a few weeks ago. Located on the western shore of Lake Champlain, the tower was erected in 1858. It was one of about a dozen on the shores and islands on the lake helping ships navigate what was once an important commercial route. In 1912 the lighthouse was redesigned as a monument to Samuel de Champlain, an early European explorer of the lake that now bears his name. The lake has traditional names, of course, an Abenaki one being Bitabagw, “the lake between.”
The mystery I’m working on takes place on an island in this lake (entirely fictional, though some of the lake’s real islands are inhabited). Of course I’m going to work a lighthouse into the story. It’s been done many times before, but lighthouses are so romantic and spooky that I can’t resist.