Lead Review – Thriller set at a South London Lido
- Book: The Swimming Pool
- Location: London
- Author: Louise Candlish
There are a surprising number of outdoor pools – lidos – dotted around London, and as Louise Candlish demonstrates in her latest novel, a lido is a perfect setting for a pacy read. It is the sultry Summer in South London in 2015.
“A swimming pool is a great stage. It’s such a symbol of pleasure and yet you can never escape the potential for danger”
Natalie is a vexing but likeable lead in the story as she stumbles from one ill-judged decision to the next. But essentially she is a little hapless, where one move is compounded by the next, all under the radiant benevolence of her new found friend, Lara Channing, a cut above in beauty and class. It is Lara, a swimming champion in her day, with a minor film to her credit, who has spent two years masterminding the renovations at the derelict lido near her house. She is a mover and a shaker and has a sunshine personality that radiates beneficently over those in her orbit. Natalie is drawn like a moth to light. She forges ahead with the new friendship at the expense of her older long-standing friendship with Gayle. Soon her husband Ed is feeling the edge of her friendship, the family life is sidelined whilst she spends time with the lovely Lara.
There are flashbacks to Natalie’s childhood, 1985, when she was in thrall to a similar aged girl in her grandparent’s home village of Stoneborough. These two have troubled personalities and vent their collusive power over other youngsters in the area. Natalie clearly likes to anxiously attach to others and bathe in the power of others. At times so biddable that she loses her moral compass.
Daughter Molly is entering the terrible teen years and due to an accident as a child, a near drowning incident, she cannot go near water. All kinds of therapies have been tried and Lara takes it upon herself to find the therapist who will address and sort the problem. Rather than see this as a controlling mechanism, Natalie is enchanted that Lara has taken such an interest in her daughter’s well-being. Ed is not immune to the Channing charm and agrees to tutor their daughter during the Summer months; but gradually there are tiny indicators that all is not as it should be. Ed withdraws, Natalie ploughs on regardless and the story culminates in a Pool Party hosted by Queen Bee Lara. And we know that something terrible has happened very early in the book, and it is only through a number of twists and turns that things come to a shattering climax.
A gripping read that you may (if you are brave) choose to read by the pool on holiday.
This review first appeared on our blog where we also chat to Louise about lidos, writing and more……
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