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. (Pub Date: Aug 4, 2020)
I liked this book much more than I thought I would, but it could still have been much better.
3.5, rounded up to 4.
Rachel commands a true-crime podcast and she's just arrived at a small town to cover the new season when a letter about an older crime in the same town piques her interest. The two stories have in common young girls slut-shamed into going from victims into the town's enemy.
The story pierced me from the beginning, probably. I was expecting one more thriller but this one really got me and I can only blame it on Megan Goldin's style, because the problem with this book is simply that we've seen most of it before. Girl gets raped, the rapist is the town's sweetheart, people hate her (this is the crime Rachel is covering for the podcast, the cold case one is slightly different though yet another well known story about a teenager who ends up dead without a proper investigation).
I think the rhythm, the characters and all in this book were good. I also love it when you get an investigation story and the one searching around doesn't have any specific personal issue getting in the way, no romance with the police or the bad guy, no big trauma distracting us from the main plot... And I especially loved the podcast episodes, it's when we get to hear Rachel's voice and I could see why the series would be so popular. I'm not a fan of any podcast but I'd like to hear that one, she does have a touch. Why am I reviewing a fictional podcast?
My big issue here is that the book wants to discuss how rape crimes are unfair to their victim. Obviously, it's a great theme. So great, I've read about it a thousand times before. Megan Goldin does bring some new light, but I think she wastes an enormous amount of time on what the reader should know already. By the time we get to what at least I consider the interestingly new part of the discussion, we're a little bit tired already. She's not wrong, the victims are victimized all over again by the system, but as I said, this has been said and explored before, so I think she could have skipped all the demonstrations, I'd have believed it anyway, and went on to the not-so old stuff. I don't want to spoil, because I think she did lift some points I hadn't thought much about before, especially about how evidence in trials can go.
I have some other problems but the way things were solved was my other bigger issue. It all rested on one piece of information, some fallen-from-heaven plot twist and it didn't sit well with me. Yes, it did explain every little thing I was wondering about, but it left me with a question of: "So is that it?" To make things worse, I felt it was quite bitter about who caused things to end well, too. I'm doing my best not to spoil anything but I didn't like the ending much. There was the good side of it explaining it all but I wish Goldin had come up with something better.
I do think this thriller was above average. I enjoyed much more than it painted to me I would. I don't recommend it to anyone who feels rape is a sensitive issue. Megan Goldin did a very good and sensitive treatment of the theme, but this book is still about rape. Aside from that trigger, I think anyone looking about a good thriller, especially one involving court trials should consider this one.
Honest review based on an ARC provided by Netgalley. Many thanks to the publisher for this opportunity.
Rating: 4 out of 5.
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