Sarah O'Connor

I received this book from River Street Writing in exchange for an honest review. 

After her grandmother dies, Kate Galway can’t help but thinking of her beloved aunt’s suicide fifty years before. No one on Meredith Island can forget it, not when Emma was so loved and had such a bright future ahead of her. While clearing out her grandmother’s house Kate finds out that her late mother believed that Emma was murdered and conducted her own investigation of the island to try and find her killer. Kate decides to continue on with the investigation with the help of her neighbour, sculptor Siobhan Fitzgerald, including taking a look at the wealthy Sutherland family with whom Emma was intimately acquainted with. As their investigation deepens the women end up receiving threatening notes and are the targets of violent incidents making them wonder, are they on the right track? And if so, who wants them to keep the truth of Emma’s death a secret?

I haven’t read a small-town cozy mystery in a long time so it was nice to dive back into this genre with Alice Fitzpatrick’s Secrets in the Water. I loved how large the island played into the lives of the characters in the novel and how the island almost seemed like it’s own character. I think Fitzpatrick did a wonderful job giving readers a glimpse into the lives of Meredith Island’s residents and think the book was at it’s strongest when doing. I also loved the glimpse into the past to learn what happened to Emma and think Fitzpatrick balanced the information from the past and present very well.

However, it’s a fairly simple story and very slow. The story is fairly weak and Kate isn’t all that interesting of a protagonist to follow. Revelations to the mystery are slow to come by and when they do it’s nothing jaw dropping. While the twist ending was a bit unexpected the reveal almost felt comical at the end. The villain’s motivations were over the top dramatic and I couldn’t take the big reveal and confrontation scene seriously because of it. There are also a few strange moments peppered through, like the mention of Kate discovering feminism in university and looking down on men who held doors open for her at the time (what?) or how a young detective doesn’t find the middle-aged bombshell Siobhan attractive and so she simply says that “he must be gay.” I will also say that Fitzpatrick is committed to the the Wales setting. Born in England, raised in southern Ontario, and “spiritually Welsh” she favours the U.K’s “focussed” to our “focused” and calls an abortion a termination.

And now onto a part that bothered me in the book, so mild spoilers to follow. Later in the novel it is revealed that as a teenager one of the suspects was guilted into having an abortion by another character. The character who had the abortion calls herself a murderer for it, and the character who impregnated her makes a note of blaming her, then a teenager girl who was pressured into abortion, and saying that he will never forgive her for murdering their child. Yes, he uses the word murder and yes, the word murder is used repeatedly by the character who had the abortion (or termination, the U.K. word for it) when referring to the abortion. While Fitzgerald is careful to have Kate remain conveniently vague about her opinions on the subject, the opinions of these two characters make it clear that there is a more right leaning, dare I say pro-life message concerning the topic of abortion. The plotline ends up going nowhere making the comparison between abortion and murder in a literal murder mystery story a strange one and irrelevant in the end. Are we really supposed to see this abortion as on the same level as a teenager girl’s possible murder? It’s upsetting, a dated view of the topic, and disappointing to have appeared so casually in the book.

While Secrets in the Water isn’t a satisfying mystery it’s worth reading for it’s great atmosphere and the world of Meredith Island that Fitzpatrick has clearly done with great care. I hope that she continues writing this series because it’s clearly one she is passionate about.

Publication: June 1 2024
Publisher: Stone House Publishing
Pages: 340 pages (Paperback)
Source: River Street Writing
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
My Rating: ⛤⛤⛤
Summary:

Emma Galway’s suicide has haunted the Meredith Island for fifty years. Back on the island to lay her grandmother to rest, Kate can’t avoid reflecting on the death of her aunt. Learning that her late mother had believed Emma was murdered and had conducted her own investigation, she decides to track down her aunt’s killer. With the help of her neighbour, impetuous and hedonistic sculptor Siobhan Fitzgerald, Kate picks up where her mother had left off. When the two women become the subject of threatening notes and violent incidents, it’s clear that one of their fellow islanders is warning them off. As they begin to look into Emma’s connection to the Sutherlands, a prominent Meredith Island family, another islander dies under suspicious circumstances, forcing Kate and Siobhan to confront the likelihood that Emma’s killer is still on the island.