Coffee2words

The Lost Swimmer is sold to us as a thriller, a story of mystery and suspense. It does possess elements of all three of those genres for certain, but it has some serious pacing issues to contend with before it reaches the likes of the best of those genres.

If it takes 65% of the book before the main mystery occurs, I think you might lose a lot of your readers prior to the excitement. It was a slow, meandering burn of a read. It built lots and lots of the Australian countryside into the story, even the local wildlife had a few cameo appearances.

But despite the long lead-time to the action, we don't get a great deal of information about the characters. We're introduced to a bevy of supporting characters that work with Rebecca (our protagonist) and thrust very quickly into the turmoil of her working life. This does play a pivotal role in the story, but it's not the main mystery.

And, speaking of the main mystery - what happened to her missing husband, Stephen - what an epic let down. After the slow building burn of the book, the ending felt so rushed it was almost like the reveal of what happened to Stephen was an afterthought.

I didn't really connect with Rebecca; the main thing I enjoyed about reading from her POV was her daily romps with Big Boy, their dog. With the exception of the 'roo' incident. That seemed placed there for convenience and to provide the slower start with some sort of drama.

Now, the copy I have I got from NetGalley, but it was appallingly formatted for the kindle. The line breaks were all off, the first letter of the first word in a chapter was on its own line, while the rest of the word was on the next paragraph line. Scene breaks, signified by an *, ran into the scene before, the * appearing at the start of the new paragraph. There were also some minor spacing issues with punctuation marks. I am sure this is not indicative of the finished product, but it was the silver bullet for an already wounded animal. By far one of the worst formatted books I've gotten from NetGalley.

**Note: I was given an electronic copy of this book in return for an honest review**