The Night Swim
by Megan Goldin

Amazon / B&N / GP/ Apple / Macmillan / B-A-M

In The Night Swim, a new thriller from Megan Goldin, author of the “gripping and unforgettable” (Harlen Coben) The Escape Room, a true-crime podcast host covering a controversial trial finds herself drawn deep into a small town’s dark past and a brutal crime that took place there years before.

Ever since 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.

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. 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?

My Rating:

Favorite Quote:

“Objectivity is so last century. Didn’t you get the memo?” said Pete. “These days everybody has an opinion. Whether they know what they’re talking about, or not. Usually it’s the latter.

My Review:

This was clever storytelling. The tension and intrigue were held to a taut and ever ratcheting level throughout this intense and arresting tale. My curiosity was making me itch, as were the realistic, traumatic, and dramatic storylines of the brutality, pettiness, and corruption of small-town living and family drama.

The writing was profoundly engaging and action-packed with evocative, striking, and poignant depictions that were maddeningly parceled out, well-crafted, and inhabited by deeply flawed yet compelling and true-to-life characters, some of whom were monstrously all too familiar to me having grown up in a similarly inbred small town. My mind spun with theories and while there was no way the little pea in my brain could have solved this shrewdly plotted and cunning paced tale, and I truly didn’t see this ending coming, I did come close with more than a few bits and pieces in my final hypotheses. Megan Goldin has mad skills and lifelong fangirl.

About the Author

MEGAN GOLDIN worked as a correspondent for Reuters and other media outlets where she covered war, peace, international terrorism, and financial meltdowns in the Middle East and Asia. She is now based in Melbourne, Australia where she raises three sons and is a foster mum to Labrador puppies learning to be guide dogs. The Escape Room was her debut novel.