Title: The Night Swim
Author: Megan Goldin
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Release Date: August 04, 20202
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Length: 344 pages
Source: Purchased from Book of the Month
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
After the first season of her true crime podcast became an overnight sensation and set an innocent man free, Rachel Krall is now a household name―and the last hope for thousands of 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.
The small town of Neapolis is being torn apart by a devastating rape trial. The town’s golden boy, a swimmer destined for Olympic greatness, has been accused of raping a high school student, the beloved granddaughter of the police chief. Under pressure to make Season Three a success, Rachel throws herself into interviewing and investigating―but the mysterious letters keep showing up in unexpected places. Someone is following her, and she won’t stop until Rachel finds out what happened to her sister twenty-five years ago. Officially, Jenny Stills tragically drowned, but the letters insists she was murdered―and when Rachel starts asking questions, nobody seems to want to answer. The past and present start to collide as Rachel uncovers startling connections between the two cases 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?
My Review:
The Night Swim by Megan Goldin is the first book that I've read by her and she has several previously published books. The Night Swim is told from multiple POVs: from the main characters all the way down to the small minor characters. Long story short, the main character, Rachel, goes down to Florida to cover a rape trial because she is a podcaster. While she's there, she unravels the missing pieces of a 20 year old cold case.
Have you ever listened to a murder mystery podcast? I listen all the time, I'm completely obsessed so I thought I would love this book! But I found it to be a little slow and not all that mysterious. Really, the only thing that kept me hooked was the cold case and wondering if she was going to solve it or not. I didn't find the sections about the rape trial all that interesting and I actually though that whole story line was pretty predictable.
Another aspect of the book that I didn't enjoy was the multiple POV's. As a long time reader, I have found that when a book is well written and uses changing POVs to follow a couple different characters, I really enjoy seeing the perspective of different characters. But I found The Night Swim to have too many perspectives and it took away from the story.
Even though I've said some negative things about The Night Swim, I did enjoy the book overall. It was an interesting story that had me hooked to the point that I wanted to know what would happen at the end. I personally love a good shock at the end, nevertheless I still enjoyed it.
