Paula Hawkins's sensational world bestseller A Girl on the Train (2015) was accepted as a psychological thriller as soon as it appeared. Her eagerly-awaited second novel Into the Water (2017), however, seems to have disappointed most of her fans who expected a still more exciting and mysterious thriller than her first one. In fact, one crime novel critic did not conceal his utter disappointment, mentioning it would not be the best choice for crime readers because "the mystery and suspense elements of this story take a backseat." Interestingly enough, he could not help admitting that the novel in question is beautifully written, and he even recommended this book he disliked to those who love literary fiction or women's fiction. After all, he is a good critic, correctly pointing out Into the Water is a novel which satisfies academic readers much more than crime fiction lovers.
Despite the fact that many readers undoubtedly regard Ms. Hawkins as a crime writer, it is doubtful that she thinks of herself as one. Reportedly she has no interest in Sherlock Holmes, and her editor of Riverhead usually avoids such genre. Which shows that Paula Hawkins is a serious writer who, I imagine, likes great authors of English and American literature such as Henry James, Virginia Woolf, and even Herman Melville. Her notorious techniques in the new novel, like the frequent changes of more than ten point-of-view characters, appear to derive from the l9th-20th centuries' literary experiments. Perhaps a large number of people who want just an entertainment for a weekend night will be unexpectedly at a loss to find the book they bought so complicated that they can hardly understand what is going on and cannot afford to reason who killed Nel Abbot, although Ms. Hawkins prepares a lot of hints.
If you want to enjoy Into the Water to your heart's content, you should read it at least twice. Contrary to your first impression, the novel is quite similar to A Girl on the Train: Libby (the same name of the unfortunate baby drowned in the bathtub) is drowned again by a mob of hateful men this time at the opening of the new book. Paula Hawkins's common theme becomes clear due to this repetition. The death of the first Libby was brought by Mac, the irresponsible man who left the young Megan when she most needed him. Tom, another egoistic man, killed Megan when he knew she was pregnant. The heroines Rachel and Anna, though they were ex-enemies, took revenge on him with a corkscrew. Into the Water is a double–plot novel consisting of Nel's mysterious death and Katie’s pathetic suicide. The former is a real whodunit which reminds me of Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926), but Ms. Hawkins prefers the latter with a strong, feministic massage somewhat related to #MeToo trend.
Katie’s story is not a mystery at all. She loved secretly Mark Henderson, a good-looking teacher very popular among female students. Since Katie was still a fifteen-year-old girl, Henderson was afraid of being arrested and put into jail where he would probably be the target of manly convicts. Katie drowned herself, trying to prevent their forbidden relation from being known to the public. Lena, her best friend who loved her, exacted revenge on Henderson, stabbing him with a "nail" (a variation of the corkscrew in the first novel) and pushing him off a cliff. This bloody killing is not narrated, the scene intentionally omitted but alluded with enough hints. Seemingly, Paula Hawkins is disappointed in men completely in Into the Water, where there is no Kamal. Again she succeeds in letting her heroine kill unpunished another handsome man as the scapegoat for the violent men who have abused women for many years.

抄録全体を表示