A disappointing sequel. But I think there’s a good book hidden inside there, somewhere
I’m going to assume that, like me, you’ve read and adored The Night Swim by Megan Goldin. If you haven’t, then you must. But for now, think of the last book that you really, really loved. The one that had you glued to the pages, reluctantly pausing only to eat and sleep before picking it up again just as soon as you could. And realising after you had finished that the book had made such an impression on you that you really couldn’t get it out of your mind.
That’s how The Night Swim was for me. I loved it so much that, even though I read it in January 2021, I knew immediately that it would feature in my top 5 list at the end of that year. In the end, I ranked it second, behind only the sensational The Last Thing to Burn by Will Dean.
So when I heard that The Night Swim was going to have a sequel, well, you can probably guess at my level of excitement. And it took only the first three chapters to have me well and truly intrigued. They include a podcast entry by the main character of both books, Rachel Krall. Actually, it tells us very little but it’s enough to have us fearing the worst. Chapter 2 moves us to the present day, and Rachel receiving a call from the FBI to tell her that her name has been mentioned by a prison inmate and suspected serial killer whom she’s never heard of. And Chapter 3 introduces us to the previously-unknown Thomas. Again, we’re told very little about him, but sense straight away that something isn’t right …
But I’m afraid that – oh, dear, how can I put this gently? – things start to go downhill from there.
The real problem is this. Everything that, for me, made The Night Swim so special seems to be missing here. Take, for example, Rachel’s podcasts. In that book, they’re the subject of an ongoing courtroom drama and they beautifully, sensitively and powerfully convey events that the victim – understandably – found too harrowing to describe, whilst leaving the worst details to the readers’ imaginations. But this time round, they’re used only to criticise the police handling of a historical investigation – with the benefit of hindsight. The power, and the reader involvement, is lost.
Then there’s the character of Rachel herself. It’s almost as though, with the passing of time, Megan Goldin had changed her mind as to who she imagined Rachel to be. Gone is the passionate, yet compassionate broadcaster of The Night Swim and instead we have someone whose main traits seem to be obstinacy, and naivety, almost to the point of childishness. Perhaps this was necessary, and reflective of an investigative journalist doing what she had to do. It felt believable. But I also felt as though I was missing the person I’d been looking forward to meeting again.
The next problem is the storyline. Much of the action takes place at a social influencers’ conference, and is told in a present-day, third person narrative. I’m sorry to say that it didn’t manage to hold my interest. To be brutally honest, this part of the book seemed to go on for too long, to the point where I had to persuade myself to carry on reading. That’s really not good enough for any book. But for a sequel to The Night Swim, which had me enthralled by every page, it’s unforgiveable. And for me, it really begged the question: why not tell this part of the story as a podcast, with Rachel putting her own slant on it?
I’m sorry – again – to say that it gets worse. A romance between two characters felt cheap and unnecessary. And what the hell is going on with the grammar?
If I hadn’t been so far through the book already, Chapter 63 might even have been enough to stop me reading. It only features Rachel, and her thoughts and actions. So to have the word ‘Rachel’ included in every single paragraph was just too much. How did an editor not spot this and change some of those mentions to the generic female pronoun of ‘she’?
I continued to the end of the book, wondering how on earth Megan had managed to get it so right in the last book and so wrong here, and it was only after closing the back cover that I realised something. The plot is really, really clever. All of the many separate strands fit together beautifully and with just the right amount of surprise, and they serve to show just how easy it is to see an apparent connection that isn’t really there, whilst missing one that’s staring you in the face.
Overall, it felt as though there was a very good book fighting to get out of these pages. Perhaps, as a stand-alone, without the cheap romance and with a bit less emphasis on the social influencing, I’d have found more to like. But I don’t think it should have been a Rachel Krall novel. A new book featuring her needed to be another courtroom drama featuring the the “Guilty or Not Guilty: The Podcast That Puts You in the Jury Box” podcast.
Megan Goldin has proved beyond any doubt that she can do it. I really hope she’s compelled to try again one day.
My rating: ★★★
30th April 2024
The blurb
Terence Bailey is about to be released from prison for breaking and entering, though investigators have long suspected him in the murders of six women. As his freedom approaches, Bailey gets a surprise visit from Maddison Logan, a hot, young influencer with a huge social media following. Hours later, Maddison disappears, and police suspect she’s been kidnapped—or worse. Is Maddison’s disappearance connected to her visit to Bailey? Why was she visiting him in the first place?
When they hit a wall in the investigation, the FBI reluctantly asks for Rachel’s help in finding the missing influencer. Maddison seems only to exist on social media; she has no family, no friends, and other than in her posts, most people have never seen her. Who is she, really? Using a fake Instagram account, Rachel Krall goes undercover to BuzzCon, a popular influencer conference, where she discovers a world of fierce rivalry that may have turned lethal.
When police find the body of a woman with a tattoo of a snake eating its tail, the FBI must consider a chilling possibility: Bailey has an accomplice on the outside and a dangerous obsession with influencers, including Rachel Krell herself. Suddenly a target of a monster hiding in plain sight, Rachel is forced to confront the very real dangers that lurk in the dark corners of the internet.
Rachel Krall, the true crime podcaster star of Megan Goldin’s acclaimed Night Swim returns to search for a popular social media influencer who disappeared after visiting a suspected serial killer.
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. She is the author of The Escape Room, The Night Swim and Stay Awake.
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