Into the Water

March 20, 2017
Jules Abbott, the heroine of bestseller Hawkins’s twisty second psychological thriller, vowed never to return to the sleepy English town of Beckford after an incident when she was a teenager drove a wedge between her and her older sister, Nel. But now Nel, a writer and photographer, is the latest in a long string of women found dead in a part of the local river known as the Drowning Pool. As Nel put it, “Beckford is not a suicide spot. Beckford is a place to get rid of troublesome women.” Before Nel’s death, the best friend of her surly 15-year-old daughter, Lena, drowned herself, an act that had a profound effect on both Nel and Lena. Beckford history is dripping with women who’ve thrown themselves—or been pushed?—off the cliffs into the Drowning Pool, and everyone—from the police detective, plagued by his own demons, working the case to the new cop in town with something to prove—knows more than they’re letting on. Hawkins (The Girl on the Train) may be juggling a few too many story lines for comfort, but the payoff packs a satisfying punch. Author tour. Agent: Lizzy Kremer, David Higham Associates (U.K.).

March 1, 2017
Women in a small British town have been drowning since 1679. "No one liked to think about the fact that the water in that river was infected with the blood and bile of persecuted women, unhappy women; they drank it every day." So sayeth the town psychic in Hawkins' (The Girl on the Train, 2015) follow-up to her smash-hit debut. Unfortunately, there's nothing here to match the sharp characterization of the alcoholic commuter at the center of that story. Here the central character--Danielle Abbott, an award-winning writer and photographer who's also the single mother of a teenager--has already died. At the time of her watery demise, she was working on a coffee-table book about the spot the people of Beckford call the Drowning Pool, once her "place of ecstasy," where she learned to swim, now her grave. She left behind a pile of typewritten pages and a daughter whose best friend also drowned just a few months ago. Danielle's estranged sister, Jules, returns to town to identify the body, relive the distressing past that led her to flee this creepy place, and try to deal with her snotty, grieving niece, Lena. Many of the neighbor families are also down a member via the pool, and even after you've managed to untangle all the willfully misleading information, half-baked subplots, and myriad characters, you're going to have a tough time keeping it straight. The spunkiest voice belongs to a somewhat tangential policewoman who probably should have been the narrator. "Seriously," she comments, "how is anyone supposed to keep track of all the bodies around here? It's like Midsomer Murders, only with accidents and suicides and grotesque historical misogynistic drownings instead of people falling into the slurry or bashing each other over the head." Let's call it sophomore slump and hope for better things.

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October 1, 2017

The small British town of Beckford, known for its winding river and history of women drowning (by suicide or in a test of witchcraft) provides an eerie setting for this tale. Fifteen-year-old Lena's mother, Nel, who has been researching the river's mysteries, is found drowned a few months after Lena's best friend's body is discovered. Did they take their own lives? Or were they murdered? Multiple detectives are on the case, and chapters from the perspectives of the many characters slowly reveal clues. Hawkins's sophomore effort after The Girl on the Train is bound to be a hit, but the plethora of characters and measured pace may deter some teens. Those who stick with the novel will be rewarded as the plot picks up toward the end of the book and builds to a satisfying denouement. VERDICT For literary readers of atmospheric mysteries.-Sarah Hill, Lake Land College, Mattoon, IL

Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from March 15, 2017
Nel Abbott obsessed over the drowning pool, a spot in the river behind her family's Beckford, England, home where several women had lost their lives, as far back as her estranged sister, Jules, can remember. Nel was writing the dead women's stories, in fact, before her own body was discovered in the pool, prompting Jules' return to Beckford to care for Nel's prickly teenage daughter, Lena. As Nel's apparent suicide is investigated, past events surfaceand some of them are barely past. Just months ago, Lena's best friend walked into the river with a weighted backpack, and the girl's grieving family blames Nel for glorifying the drowned women. Needless to say, nothing is quite as it appears, but those who know more have reasons to keep quiet. In her second thriller, Hawkins (The Girl on the Train, 2015) returns to the rotating-narration style of her breakout debut, giving voice to an even broader cast this time, and readers will see shades of Girl''s Rachel in Jules. Hawkins' creepy small-town setting is a draw, too. As a called-in investigator notes of Beckford, it seems like whichever way you turn, in whatever direction you go, somehow you always end up back at the river. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Have you heard of The Girl on the Train? Sure you havealong with everyone else. Order by the ton.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2017

Author of The Girl on the Train, the latest byword for best-selling phenomenon, Hawkins offers a second novel that opens with a single mother and then a teenage girl found dead at river's bottom. The subsequent investigation reveals a twisty, winding history in their small town.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2017

Jules Abbott receives word that her sister Nel has drowned and returns to her hometown. Since she and Nel were estranged for decades, Jules had never met her teenage niece, who responds to her visit with rancor and mistrust. There is speculation surrounding Nel's death, with some calling it accidental and others suspecting suicide. Rumors swirl among the townspeople, linking Nel to the long history of women who have drowned over the years, this sinister sisterhood lost to the Drowning Pool. As the police conduct their investigation, Jules mounts her own informal one. Piecing together clues from the townspeople, Jules unearths decades-old mysteries and finds secrets from her own past bubbling to the surface. In the popular tradition of her best-selling debut, The Girl on the Train, Hawkins guides readers through a muddled labyrinth of twists and turns, secrets and lies, and misdirections that will ultimately reveal the sordid details of three deaths before its surprising conclusion. VERDICT A must-have for fans of twisty thrillers. [See Prepub Alert, 12/5/16; "Editors' Spring Picks," LJ 2/15/17.]--Mary Todd Chesnut, Northern Kentucky Univ. Lib., Highland Heights

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.