I'm a fan of scandal noir and so looked forward to reading Winter Water. It's a slow burn read atmospheric read. I particularly enjoyed the writer's description of the geography and area, but i struggled a bit with the characters and the plot. Accordingly I just didn't get that 'I'm in' moment with this particular novel.

When Martin receives a phone call little does he know that his life is about to fall apart; as he takes his eyes away from his young son momentarily he disappears. The police suspect he's drowned but his body doesn't ever wash ashore. As Martin tries desperately to put the pieces of his life back together the dark history of his house is revealed; could this have anything to do with what happened and what can he do to stop this happening again?

This was an atmospheric and slow burn of a suspense thriller; I liked the island setting as it made the story all the more claustrophobic and as secrets were revealed it was more compelling. A very tense and emotional suspense story that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review

I would like to thank Netgalley and Hodder & Stoughton for an advance copy of Winter Water, a stand-alone set on the Swedish island of Orust.

Martin and his family have recently moved into the family cabin on Orust where he has started a mussel farm. He is distracted by a phone call and his three year old son, Adam disappears, presumed drowned. Former police photographer Maya becomes a friend to Martin in his grief and decides to investigate. They discover that Adam is not the first child over the decades to disappear into the water on the eleventh of January.

I struggled with Winter Water and my overall impression is dreariness. I think that my impression of dreariness comes from the flat, matter of fact tone, whether that is the aim or something got lost in translation I don’t know. To be fair, it is strong in its depiction of Martin’s grief but I’m more interested in the mystery and that is extremely slow.

It is more about ordinary people and their reactions to extraordinary circumstances, Martin’s breakdown and subsequent renewed sense of purpose and Maya’s inquisitiveness and impulsivity. They are strongly drawn characters and while it’s nice and makes for a change to have normal people as protagonists I ended up screaming for something to happen in Adam’s disappearance and not the supernatural event the author constantly hints at. If I went back to my young days and studies of literary criticism I’m sure I could find some comment about the role of folklore and superstition on human response to tragedy, but I’m too lazy to put in the effort.

Winter Water is, I think, too literary for my taste with too much t(inking and not enough forward propulsion.