Red Water

LoveReading Says

Modern real-life conflict meets intoxicating noir in this enthralling Croatia-set crime thriller centred on the long-unsolved vanishing of a young woman in 1989. Spanning almost three decades, and following multiple engrossing perspectives, Jurica Pavičič’s Red Water reels with the repercussions of the collapse of communism, rise of nationalism and war, and a family’s dogged, desperate search for the daughter and sister who vanished at the age of seventeen.

As Yugoslavia teeters on the edge of brutal civil war, a family living in a fishing village on the Dalmatian Coast are thrown into personal turmoil when 17-year-old Silva doesn’t return from a night out. While her parents “aren’t interested in politics. They firmly believe that if they stay as far away as possible from trouble, trouble will stay away from them”, they find themselves pulled into the terrible troubles of war, and to their daughter’s personal troubles, when it emerges that Silva had been involved in selling drugs.

As war breaks out, and the investigation into her vanishing is closed, her family continue to search for her, especially Silva’s brother, across decades. Complex, layered and commanding, Red Water is a hauntingly powerful read.

Reviewed by Joanne Owen
Joanne Owen’s lifelong love of reading and writing began when she was growing up in Pembrokeshire, and very much wished that witches (and Mrs Pepperpot) were real.
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About Red Water

A woman disappears after a beach party, and the search for her reveals Croatia's complex history well beyond the fall of Communism.

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