The Devil and the Dark Water

by Stuart Turton

[pamela]

I finished The Devil and the Dark Water in literally two days, so I must have enjoyed it! It was a fun read, with a great premise, and a fascinatingly weird mix of genres. It was, at its heart, a closed-room mystery, but had elements of historical fiction and horror mixed in.

Almost the entire novel takes place in a single location, an Indiaman called the Saardar, so the atmosphere is cloying and claustrophobic. There is nowhere for the characters to run or escape to, which heightened the sense of mystery. To have so many mysterious occurrences on a ship where a villain shouldn't be able to hide definitely kept the plot fresh, and its myriad twists and turns while not revolutionary, certainly weren't predictable. Drama, demons, and superstition all come together to make a fast-paced story that was just really fun to read.

While I found the plot engaging, I did find the characters of The Devil and the Dark Water a little lacklustre. One of the main characters is hardly in the story, and there's an unnecessary love story that ended up feeling like YA instalove rather than a genuine connection. The sailors themselves were the best-developed characters who I found the most interesting. Many character backstories that would have helped me really bond with them were intentionally held back for the sake of a later reveal which, though it makes sense from a story point of view, did make me feel like I got too little too late. It made the ending feel very much like an infodump rather than a genuinely satisfying conclusion. There was a very Scooby-Doo vibe to the denouement that I thought let an otherwise excellent book down.

Overall, this was a really enjoyable read. It's full of twists and turns, and thankfully, none of them were predictable. I wasn't so disappointed by the convenient wrap up of the end that it ruined my enjoyment of The Devil and the Dark Water. I'll definitely have to pick up Turton's first novel now.