INTO THE WATER By Paula Hawkins

Pages: 394

Publisher: Riverhead Books

Release Date: May 2, 2017

Sold by: Penguin Group (USA) LLC

Genre: Psychological Mystery – Thriller – Suspense

BLURB

A single mother turns up dead at the bottom of the river that runs through town. Earlier in the summer, a vulnerable teenage girl met the same fate. They are not the first women lost to these dark waters, but their deaths disturb the river and its history, dredging up secrets long submerged.   Left behind is a lonely fifteen-year-old girl. Parentless and friendless, she now finds herself in the care of her mother’s sister, a fearful stranger who has been dragged back to the place she deliberately ran from—a place to which she vowed she’d never return.   With the same propulsive writing and acute understanding of human instincts that captivated millions of readers around the world in her explosive debut thriller, The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins delivers an urgent, twisting, deeply satisfying read that hinges on the deceptiveness of emotion and memory, as well as the devastating ways that the past can reach a long arm into the present.   Beware a calm surface—you never know what lies beneath.

REVIEW

By John W Kurtze

Paula Hawkins is still writing like Alfred Hitchcock in her new book INTO THE WATER.  Hawkins’ storyline grabs her readers’ attention describing the history of a woman drowning in a body of water known as “The Drowning Pool.”  The author tells her psychological thriller by sharing the thoughts and actions of the residents of Beckford, England.   Using a concept of transitioning between each character thoughts and actions, Hawkins’ readers follow the characters past and current thoughts throughout the storyline.  The author skillfully gives each dead woman a voice by changing the font face and placing “The Drowning Pool,” at the top of the page. Hawkins identifies each woman’s name and the date of the thought of each deceased character

Readers will find there are multiple characters in Hawkins’ storyline.  They hear from several residents, police, and relatives of the two most current women who have died in the pool.

The storyline momentum moves at steady pace giving readers time to consider what each character is saying or what they are doing and how it fits into the plot. Hawkins strives to involve her readers in each characters’ feelings and thoughts.

After the death of Nel Abbott, details of her writing project surface.  Hawkins shares the backstory of Nel as an author/artist, and her book project is focusing on the drowning victims at the “Drowning Pool” giving readers an insight to what she has found.   The author uses interesting methods to give readers different perspectives as they read each characters’ point of view.  Hawkins hints where the story is going, also true to Hitchcock’s style, she develops events that might not be what they seem.   INTO THE WATER, is a story with an ending that is a mystery.   Hawkins writes a thought provoking story that is a must read and earns a five-star ranking.

 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Paula Hawkins worked as a journalist for fifteen years before turning her hand to fiction. Born and brought up in Zimbabwe, Paula moved to London in 1989 and has lived there ever since. Her first thriller, The Girl on the Train, has been published in over forty languages, has been a No.1 bestseller around the world and is now a major motion picture starring Emily Blunt. Into the Water is her second thriller.