Book Review: "The Darkest Water" by Mark Edwards

Mark Edwards is a great author. Recently I read his book The Psychopath Next Door which was my second book by him and it was just incredible. I was thus recommended The Darkest Water which starts with a man being found buried in the sand on the beach where he was left so that, when the tide came in, he would drown. Only his head was visible when he was found, mouth agape. Mark Edwards takes us through the twisted world of the quiet parts of the Lake District where nothing ever happens. Except for now, where things begin to collapse one inbox message at a time. At its centre is Calvin, a bakery owner who accidentally goes semi-viral because of his new found social media account. But of course, there are things that aren't all that great about social media too and very quickly, everything starts to spiral.

Calvin owns a bakery which, before social media, isn't doing so well. Once he gets a bit of a following things start to pick up - but there is a deeper reason why Calvin is averse to visiting the social media realm. He gets to talking this person called Mel who ultimately drops by and is hired as a temp to replace an assistant named Tara who is out after being pushed down the stairs by a mystery man who broke into the bakery. And that is only the beginning of Calvin's problems because once Mel is hired, his wife Vicky starts believing that Calvin and Mel are having an affair. Especially after discovering that her pendant is in their bed, in their house.

But it turns out this has not much to do with the main line of story yet. Mark Edwards gives us something else to look at, something that makes Calvin feel uneasy: a man is discovered drowned in the lake near where Mel lives and despite not actually having an affair with her, he starts thinking about whether Mel could be living another life. She often states she doesn't want to go home after being bullied by a group of youths she once told off. They come to her house and harass her by tapping on windows and shouting things. Calvin takes pity on her, but he's still scared. Mark Edwards is definitely ramping up the different stories, helping us to understand that nearly every character in this book is hiding something massively important and we aren't even halfway there yet.

I'm not going to lie, I was sold as soon as there were questions and motives asked about the place. But when there is an unidentified dead body discovered at the start of a novel, that makes it all the more interesting. Once the police enter the home of this recluse after discovering that he was squatting somewhere before he died, they see a man who was tormented by images of Hell and obsessed with the fact that he was hiding something absolutely terrifying. Meanwhile, Calvin is becoming possessive again and his wife is perfectly aware of his dead sister, Freya - who died in a horrible accident long ago - and that's why he's so protective of the people around him. As we again start to see these two stories converge we are met with a whole new situation: whatever happened in 1995 had to stay buried in 1995. Someone crashes a car, and Freya dies. Someone ends up dead by falling down a creek and smacking their head off a rock, drowning in a pool of water and blood. Someone is trying to rid their conscience but can't do it completely.

This story might be a bit convoluted and there are a lot of characters each with their own backstory, but it definitely feels like a classic crime and thriller novel. One that deals as much with the past as the present and no matter what we think about these characters, we must accept that they are each bad in their own way. There are many things going on and motives for different people. But we also must accept another thing which I think is far more disturbing: that in a timeline where nothing in 1995 happened, the stalker on social media would have probably killed Calvin's wife, Vicky, with very few problems. Honestly, the possibilities of this book blow your mind more than the holes you can find in the plot. I really enjoyed it, it was heaps of fun.