Title: The Night Swim
Author: Megan Goldin
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Release Date: August 4, 2020
Pages: 352
Book Source: NetGalley
Comes out on August 4th, 2020, but can be pre-ordered now!
“After her true-crime podcast became an overnight sensation and set an innocent man free, Rachel Krall has become a household name—and the last hope for people seeking justice. But she’s used to being recognized for her voice, not her face. Which makes it all the more unsettling when she finds a note on her car windshield, addressed to her, begging for help.
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The new season of Rachel’s podcast has brought her to a small town being torn apart by a devastating rape trial. A local golden boy, a swimmer destined for Olympic greatness, has been accused of raping the beloved granddaughter of the police chief. Under pressure to make Season 3 a success, Rachel throws herself into her investigation—but the mysterious letters keep coming. Someone is following her, and she won’t stop until Rachel finds out what happened to her sister twenty-five years ago.
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Officially, Jenny Stills tragically drowned, but the letters insist she was murdered—and when Rachel starts asking questions, nobody in town wants to answer. The past and present start to collide as Rachel uncovers startling connections between the two cases—and a revelation that will change the course of the trial and the lives of everyone involved.
Electrifying and propulsive, The Night Swim asks: What is the price of a reputation? Can a small town ever right the wrongs of its past? And what really happened to Jenny?” – Amazon
Kim’s Review
Many of the thrillers I’ve been reading lately include rape or sexual assault. I haven’t been seeking these out, but since #metoo and people talking more about rape, many more authors have been writing about it. Write what you know or write with the times.
Some of these books have been very good, while I’ve felt others wrote about this topic because it’s currently in the media, but they really should have looked for a different angle.
I don’t care why Megan Goldin decided to write The Night Swim, because it’s been the best recently written book I’ve read about rape. And I also want to mention that I read this book in one sitting, which I haven’t done in a long time. It was so good I needed to find out what was going to happen.
Goldin combines two stories into one, with a girl, Jenny, who drowned over 20 years ago and a rape trial that is happening now. The way they are weaved together is masterful. There is also a stalker involved who does some really creepy things to get Rachel’s attention.
Goldin leaves plenty of clues in the story so the reader feels as if they are part of the jury trying to discern what information is pertinent, and as a sleuth following Rachel around as she tries to find out what happened to Jenny all those years ago. Some things I saw coming, and you will too, if you pay attention. But there were still a few surprises, which made this book even better.
I highly recommend The Night Swim, as well as Goldin’s other book, The Escape Room.
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