‘A dark, menacing book… a literary thriller of the highest order’ Julia Crouch
‘THIS IS THE WATER is this year’s GONE GIRL: unexpected, immersing, challenging and up-to-the-minute relevant. A must read’ Manda Scott
This is a novel about a woman. About a mother. About a marriage.
About a murder.
In the brightly lit public pool the killer swims and watches. Amongst the mothers cheering on their swim team daughters is Annie. Watching her two girls race, she’s thinking of other things. Her husband’s emotional distance. Her lost brother. The man she’s drawn to.
Then she learns a terrible secret. Now her everyday cares and concerns seem meaningless. Annie knows she has to act. Above all, she must protect her children.
Compulsively readable, it takes readers on a journey where none could guess the final outcome.
(P)2014 HarperCollins
‘THIS IS THE WATER is this year’s GONE GIRL: unexpected, immersing, challenging and up-to-the-minute relevant. A must read’ Manda Scott
This is a novel about a woman. About a mother. About a marriage.
About a murder.
In the brightly lit public pool the killer swims and watches. Amongst the mothers cheering on their swim team daughters is Annie. Watching her two girls race, she’s thinking of other things. Her husband’s emotional distance. Her lost brother. The man she’s drawn to.
Then she learns a terrible secret. Now her everyday cares and concerns seem meaningless. Annie knows she has to act. Above all, she must protect her children.
Compulsively readable, it takes readers on a journey where none could guess the final outcome.
(P)2014 HarperCollins
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Reviews
A dark, menacing book... a literary thriller of the highest order
THIS IS THE WATER is this year's GONE GIRL: unexpected, immersing, challenging and up-to-the-minute relevant. A must read
'A gifted storyteller with an unusual, hypnotic voice... truly original, it casts a spell that lingers in your mind'
'An upmarket thriller... Murphy is less interested in deviant psychology than in portraying everyday lives of quiet desperation, and in this she succeeds triumphantly'
'An inventive thriller... Murphy proves skilful at generating a proper climate of dread, forcing us to focus our fears on the killer's next victim'
'A pulse-racing thriller'
'The resulting intimacy you develop with each character takes this book beyond compelling into seriously addictive: you feel as they feel, be it fear, loss, longing or that most gripping of all feelings, love. Do not miss it'
'Obscenely suspenseful. . . . In Murphy's hands, the structure becomes almost hypnotic - and when the story hits full speed in the final quarter, the suspense becomes almost excruciating'