in a series of riddles that her grandfather (Liam Willson) leaves behind, Anna sets out to find the inheritance that he left for her.
the story spans from the 1950s-1970s. Anna was born around 1963 and the start of the story with Anna being a pre-teen is in 1975. Likely set in the U.S.
so the grandpa had hidden his inheritance in the form of gold bars deposited at the lake bottom near his country house.... instead of putting it in a bank or a trust for his granddaughter... does that make any sense at all?? Like I get that he didn't want his crazy second son getting the inheritance, but how is that going to protect Anna once she finds it?? Not to mention, the years the gold bars had been at the bottom of the lake might alter its value, and what if someone else had discovered it? what if the government changed the laws and claimed that the lake isn't part of the grandfather's private property? Or rather, what if the government didn't buy the story of the grandfather leaving Anna his inheritance of gold bars in a lake? because technically the grandfather only left the country house to Anna in his will. The rest of his inheritance had "disappeared" and was considered a mystery.
anyways, the writing was pretty nice for a story of this length, full of suspense. The art really gives you an eerie feeling of not knowing which characters to trust other than Anna lol. The plot itself was kind of typical once all the mysteries were revealed, as in, for example, the half uncle had no redemption arc; he was a psychopath the whole time, who was a serial killer who went from killing cats to killing people.
the blonde haired maid turning out to be another villain was predictable since this story liked these types of twists. it was no surprise that she was a fake ally. it was disappointing that her motives are purely greed (stealing from old rich people she works for as a maid) and she had no blood relation to Anna (readers were guessing that the maid may be a relative since she had blonde hair like Anna's paternal grandmother).
Anna's half uncle who adopted her (Anna's dad's half brother; a.k.a. the serial killer) is the villain throughout the story, along with his crazy accomplice. The accomplice and half uncle backstab each other near the end of the story, with the half uncle winning (kills the accomplice), then the maid kills half uncle in the fire she creates in the secret library under Anna's bed. Then the maid forces Anna to try to find the inheritance in the lake, and Anna manages to hit the maid in the head and runs away. So the maid drowns in the lake and dies.
So while all 3 main villains are dealt with, there was no closure for Ethan (the manservant) who turned out to be a good guy; he helped Catherine (the lady with mental health disorders) run away from her abusive rich family and they were rescued by Anna's grandfather and lived with him for the last 5 years of his life in the country house, one as a manservant and the lady ended up as the cook, somehow. I don't know who taught her how to cook when her abusive family locked her in a room her whole life after she got sick and became mentally disabled as a child (it was a very tragic story).
But anyways, near the end of the story, when Ethan who is shot once already by the half-uncle and is trying to escape the house with Catherine, gets into the nearby forest but nothing gets mentioned after that about him. It's assumed Ethan gets shot off-screen by the crazy half-uncle because he wasn't brought up again (the story continues with the half uncle finding Anna and trying to use and kill her) but there's no closure at all for Ethan.
After the villains die, the police arrive because they found Catherine had fainted outside the town so came to check on Anna's country house and puts out the fire. So Catherine somehow escaped but Ethan likely died to let her escape. At the end of the story, Anna visits the grave of her grandpa and Catherine now lives with Anna, but nothing gets mentioned about Ethan, the loyal servant who played a big role in the story protecting Anna and Catherine. Quite disappointing.
Anna's friend, the mail boy, ends up getting caught up in the house fire at the end of the story but survives and lives happily after as well. Racism was briefly brought up with the mail boy being bullied by white kids for being black. Ethan was treated like an inferior human being along with the rest of the black servants at Catherine's family estate who were considered unsightly to Catherine's father.
There's a lot of flashbacks in the story too, like Anna's parents being killed by the half uncle in order to be the sole inheritor. However, Anna's grandfather never liked his second son (Anna's half uncle) because grandfather had been basically raped to produce the child and this second son turned out to not be even his biologically...? (forgot the details on whether that unhinged woman had lied or falsely believed that her son was actually Liam Willson's or not. but basically, she was crazy obsessed with Anna's grandfather). Anna's paternal grandmother (Liam Willson's wife) presumably dies from heartache after learning her husband had slept with another woman, although it's unlikely that she knew that Liam was raped, especially considering the social stigma of men being raped during that time period, meaning the grandfather likely kept it as a secret his whole life.
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