The Shark

Emma Styles’ debut, No Country for Girls, was a cracker of a book that saw two girls legging it from a crime scene with a bag of gold in the boot of a car. As they are chased through remote Western Australia, the stakes and the tension ratchet up and up. It’s high octane, unputdownable stuff. So, when I was offered the chance to review Styles’ latest offering, of course the answer was yes.

In contrast to her first book, The Shark is a gritty urban thriller. Set along the Cottesloe coast area of Perth, this book draws upon a couple of instances of serial killings, notably the Claremont murders, that were recently solved. The hunting patterns of sharks in pursuit of their prey are used to metaphorically illustrate the predatory modus operandi of the serial killer in this book, who stalks swimmers and leaves their bodies on the beach.

Again, women and women victim-survivors are front and centre in this sophomore novel. Our protagonists Raych and Carmen are frankly fed up with the failures of the police in protecting their community. Both women have had their lives destabilised by loss and trauma: Raych keenly feels the loss of her best friend Piper, whose murder is unsolved, and Carmen’s relationships with her immediate family are increasingly troubled. Their bond, uneasy at first, is grounded in a shared sense of urgency to do something, even if that means taking matters into their own hands. When another girl goes missing, a horrible truth begins to emerge, leaving Raych and Carmen to grapple with a big ethical conundrum. The Shark is a terrific psychological thriller!