Into the Water

The town of Beckford in rural England has seen more than its fair share of drowning deaths. The latest victims, both presumed suicides, are teenager Katie Whitaker and, a few weeks later, muckraking writer Nel Abbott. Now, Nel’s daughter Lena (the late Katie’s friend) and Nel’s estranged sister Julia are left to pick up the pieces. Though the two surviving Abbotts don’t know, like, or trust one another, asking around leads them both to the same uncomfortable conclusion: Nel’s death was neither suicide nor accident. But trying to unearth a culprit in a town that likes its secrets proves to be a dangerous game to play at.

When Paula Hawkins followed up her successful debut The Girl on the Train with this 2017 novel, there was reason to be optimistic. First novels are often glimpses at potential yet to be realized. Unfortunately, Into the Water is a step backward rather than forward.

First, the good: Hawkins excels at communicating a sense of place. Beckford’s provincialism rings true, and the town’s everybody-knows-everybody quality contributes to the novel’s tension. After all, it is far more troubling to consider that you have been wronged by someone you have known all your life than it is to know you have been victimized by a random stranger.

Speaking of tension, Into the Water’s central mystery – the suspicious drowning deaths of several women – is fairly engrossing. The first drowning described is the centuries-old public execution of a woman wrongfully accused of witchcraft, and that death hangs over the novel. But as with The Girl on the Train, Hawkins complicates the resolution through misdirection, some of it successful, some of it decidedly not.

As with the previous book, Hawkins employs multiple alternating narrators. While the perspective changes may frustrate some readers, if done correctly, they can also shade characters and lead to a more nuanced understanding of them. Unfortunately, however, this technique is abused rather than used wisely. We have chapters told not only from Lena’s and Julia’s points of view, but also from those of Sean (the policeman investigating Nel’s murder), his father Patrick, his schoolmarm wife Helen, and his junior partner Erin, among others. As a result, the narrative focus is stretched too thin, and these different voices aren’t given enough depth. It says something about a book when the character who grows the most – via changing perceptions of her – is one who has been dead from the beginning.

Then again, in some cases, this is just as well: Hawkins continues to struggle to write male characters. As with The Girl on the Train, abusive and devious men function as red herrings, competing for the role of perpetrator. But whereas the previous book gave these characters some definition beyond their malice, here Hawkins instead traffics largely in one-dimensional stereotypes, from Sean’s reactionary patriarch of a father to a pathetic, insecure ephebophile teacher. If a male writer in 2017 wrote every female character as a femme fatale (without parodic intent), he would rightly be dragged for it. So too should Hawkins for her shallow misandry.

Ultimately, Into the Water squanders its deft use of setting and promising premise on too untenable a structure and too little character exploration. Here’s hoping the next novel rights the course.

6.75/10