I cannot thank enough Mia Quibell-Smith at Vintage for sending me a surprise copy of The Drowning Place by Sarah Hilary. As I explained to Sarah when we were chatting at Capital Crime, I saved The Drowning Place to take on a cruise! Thankfully I am able to share my review today.

It’s far too long since Sarah appeared here on Linda’s Book Bag.

The Drowning Place was published by Harvill on 16th April 2926 and us available for purchase through the publisher links here.

The Drowning Place

Every place has its ghosts.

Edenscar, a town in the Peak District, has more than most. 17 years ago, its inhabitants were hit by tragedy when a school bus veered off the road and everyone on board drowned. Everyone, that is, except Joseph Ashe. His miraculous survival has haunted him and the town ever since.

Now a Detective Sergeant in the local police, Joe is called to the scene of a brutal and apparently inexplicable crime. The whole town is spooked, but Joe’s new boss, DI Laurie Bower, more used to inner-city police work, has no time for superstition. She just wants to find the very real killer who has left no trace and apparently had no motive.

Joining forces, Joe and Laurie work to uncover the secrets of Edenscar, both past and present.

But when you dig up the dead, expect to get your hands dirty…

My Review of The Drowning Place

DI Laurie Bower has moved forces and is working with DS Joe Ashe.

Not usually a great fan of police procedural narratives, I was utterly enthralled by The Drowning Place and thought it was brilliant.

Sarah Hilary’s prose manages to be simultaneously brief, beautiful and incisive so that the reader finds themselves completely ensnared. The writing is, quite simply, wonderful. 

As one would hope, there is an enthralling and entertaining plot with brutal murders being investigated. As clues are threaded into the narrative the reader is compelled to read on. I found the resolution satisfying, surprising and believable so that, filled with drama, The Drowning Place delivers a police procedural story with aplomb. 

However, that thoroughly engaging story which would make the novel fantastic in its own right, is a mere strand in the book. The drowning place is a literal setting for the background to Joseph Ashe’s personality and home area, and there’s a real sense of small town intensity that feeds into the tension of the story. But the place where the drownings occurred is also a metaphorical setting of grief, despair and guilt which pervades events, prompting attitudes and actions in characters that I found so impactful. The past never leaves Joe alone, shaping him, controlling him and making him the police officer he is now. I didn’t so much read this book as experience it viscerally.

I loved Joe. What a credible, broken, stoic and astonishing man! The arrival of Laurie disturbs the local status quo so that, as she begins to find her feet in Edenscar and becomes Joe’s boss, so her presence enables the reader to gain greater insight into his personality. His relationship with Sammi is one of the most moving in fiction that I’ve encountered. I don’t want to ruin the read for others by saying too much, but I felt the emotional intensity between them almost physically as I read. 

Laurie too is so well depicted. She treads a fine line between compassion and steely determination. Unafraid to admit when she’s wrong, but equally determined to stick to her guns when she believes herself to be right, she is the perfect counterbalance to Joe. I think what we have in Laurie and Joe is a pairing that will become one of the most loved in a generation of crime writing. 

Alongside this wealth of interest and entertainment lie themes that feel all too pertinent to today’s society. In The Drowning Place there are examples of prejudice, manipulation, poverty, wealth, corruption and so on. Each is handled with sensitivity and dexterity so that when some of the later, terrifying, events occur they feel totally authentic. Reading The Drowning Place feels as if you’re in the hands of an incredibly skilled writer who knows just how we all think and feel beneath the surface and who is able to convey that truth with absolute perception and humanity whilst delivering a fabulous nattative. 

It’s quite hard to review The Drowning Place adequately. It is exciting to read. It has compelling characters. It is frequently emotional and often surprising. With the sparsest of prose Sarah Hilary creates the deepest of meaning. Elegant, eloquent and exquisite, The Drowning Place is crime fiction at its very best. I thought it was fantastic.

About Sarah Hilary

Sarah Hilary is the critically-acclaimed author of nine novels. Her debut, Someone Else’s Skin, won the Theakston Crime Novel of the Year 2015 and was a World Book Night selection, a Richard & Judy Book Club pick and a finalist for both the Silver Falchion and Macavity Awards in the US. No Other Darkness, the second in her DI Marnie Rome series, was shortlisted for a Barry Award.

In April 2026, The Drowning Place introduced readers to DS Joseph Ashe at the start of a brand new series set in the Peak District.

Sarah is Programme Director for St Hilda’s Crime Fiction Weekend, and co-founder of Ledburied, a crime fiction festival in her home town. Her short stories have won the Fish Criminally Short Histories Prize, the Cheshire Prize for Literature, and the SENSE Prize.

For more information, follow Sarah on X @Sarah_Hilary, find her on Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram or visit her website.