Into the Water

Finished September 29
Into the Water by Paula Hawkins, read by Laura Aikman, Sophie Aldred, Rachel Bavidge, Imogen Church, and Daniel Weyman

This suspense novel begins with a death. Nel, single mother of a teenage daughter, Lena, has been found dead in the river in a small English town. Nel and her younger sister Jules had grown up there, living in the Old Mill House, the same house that Nel and Lena live in now. Nel always overshadowed her sister, more outgoing and prettier than her. When Jules was only thirteen something came between the sisters, causing Jules to draw away from Nel. Now Jules must return to deal with her sister's death and take charge of Lena.
The death seems like a suicide, taking place in a spot known locally as the drowning pool, where women going back centuries have taken their own lives. Nel was obsessed with the river and the women, and was planning to write a book about it. One of the stories that the reader becomes aware of is the deliberate drowning of a seventeenth-century girl who was suspected of being a witch. Another is a woman who drowned herself shortly after the first World War, after killing her husband who had returned from the war a changed and difficult man. More recently the local policeman's mother had supposedly drowned herself after a love affair gone wrong when he was only a boy, and Lena's best friend Katie had drowned herself for no explicable reason just a few months ago, filling her pockets with stones.
The police brass are eager to close the case quickly, but there's a new policewoman in town and as she begins talking with the locals and getting a feel for the various players, more inconsistencies come to light. Lena and Jules have both noticed the absence of Nel's bracelet, a bracelet that belonged to her mother and that she wore constantly. Katie's mother is still looking for answers, and for someone to blame. As both Jules and the policewoman make headway, the question arises of whether the drowning pool has drawn women who see no other choice or men who see a way to get rid of troublesome women.
I liked this novel better than her first, and found the tie to historical cases interesting. Things are always what they seem and this town has more than its share of secrets.