📖 Publication day Book Review ~ The Wild Swimmers by William Shaw

Riverrun
23 May 2024

DS Alexandra Cupidi #5

My thanks to the publisher for my copy of this book

The body of a local woman, Mimi Greene, is found washed up on the Folkstone shoreline. The community is left in disbelief as this confident swimmer seemingly chose to go out into the waters alone, in bad weather, without telling a soul about her plans… DS Alexandra Cupidi must find the truth behind Mimi’s death. Full to the brim with action and suspense, Shaw propels us into a world of shady characters as crimes of the past come to the fore with deadly consequences and the idyllic surroundings of waterways and sea life aren’t all they seem.

Join Cupidi in her latest intricate and unforgettable case as she battles to protect her daughter Zoë from harm and discover the missing link between a group of wild swimmers, an online dating profile and a slippery killer, the mysterious ‘Malcolm’. 

The Wild Swimmers is a twisty and delicious crime novel.

📖 My Review..

The Wild Swimmers is now the fifth book in the DS Alexandra Cupidi series of crime novels and whilst I hadn’t read the previous books, something I aim to rectify, I was soon able to pick up some of the back story, especially as this sees DS Cupidi returning to work after a short leave of absence. The story starts off as it means to go on with the sad discovery of a woman’s body on a remote Dungeness beach. With the dead woman having links to a group of wild swimmers, Cupidi and her team have a difficult task of determining whether Mimi Greene’s death was accidental or deliberate.

With a series of complications pulling the investigative team in all sorts of directions the mystery surrounding the dead woman deepens especially as Cupidi also becomes drawn into a parallel story which affects her friend William South and her colleague DC Jill Ferriter. The involvement of the group of women who make up the wild swimmers was an interesting plot-line and I enjoyed wondering where they would all fit into the story. I didn’t know any of these characters at the start of the story but by the end they all felt like old friends and I enjoyed watching them find their place in the plot.

The eeriness of the Dungeness setting, which soon becomes a character in its own right, and with the investigation pulled in all sorts of convoluted directions, some of which happened in the past, there was much to consider and ponder over. I didn’t see the ending coming, which is always a good sign, and I finished the book wanting to know more about DS Alexandra Cupidi, so it’s now my intention to catch up with the previous books in this  series.

About the Author

WILLIAM SHAW was born in Newton Abbot, Devon, grew up in Nigeria and lived for sixteen years in Hackney. He has been shortlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger, longlisted for the Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year and nominated for a Barry Award. A regular at festivals, he organises panel talks and CWA events across the country. He is the author of the Breen & Tozer crime series set in sixties London: A Song from Dead Lips, A House of Knives and A Book of Scars; and the standalone The Birdwatcher. Salt Lane and Deadland are spin-offs to The Birdwatcher. For over twenty years he has written on popular culture and sub-culture for various publications including the Observer and the New York Times. William lives in County Cork, Ireland with a base in Brighton. 

Twitter / X @william1shaw #TheWildSwimmers

Website

@riverrunbooks