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Undertow
On the surface, James Sawday's life couldn't be any better. Writing investigative pieces for a glossy men's magazine, he gets to travel the world. But when James's editor sends him to the seedy seaside town of Grancombe to cover the third attack of a serial killer who specializes in chopping off his victims' hands, he knows he's in trouble.
Ten years before, during a hazy, drug-fuelled summer, James was one of a group of teenagers who stumbled on the mutilated corpse of local artist Jack Dawes. And then the second killing happened - the one that still gives James nightmares.
Now James has got to dig up everything he's worked so hard to bury. And what he's going to find could cost him his sanity. Or even his life.
Ten years before, during a hazy, drug-fuelled summer, James was one of a group of teenagers who stumbled on the mutilated corpse of local artist Jack Dawes. And then the second killing happened - the one that still gives James nightmares.
Now James has got to dig up everything he's worked so hard to bury. And what he's going to find could cost him his sanity. Or even his life.
277 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
1 person is currently reading
7 people want to read
About the author
Emlyn Rees
26 books44 followersEMLYN REES is a fiction and non-fiction author, editor and director of the Dark & Stormy Crime Film, TV & Book Festival, and an associate copywriter at We Are Adult.
He spent his early twenties traveling around Asia and pouring drinks in London for the likes of Sylvester Stallone and Princess Anne, before joining the Curtis Brown literary agency and having his first crime novel published aged twenty-five, his second a year later, and then co-writing seven comedies with Josie Lloyd, including the Number One Sunday Times bestseller Come Together.
Emlyn’s race-against-the-clock thriller, Hunted, was published in 2012 by Constable & Robinson in the UK and HarperCollins in the US. Hunted is optioned and in in development with Biting Point films, scripted and being directed by Eric Styles. The sequel, Wanted, was published in 2014 in the UK by Little, Brown and in the US by HarperCollins.
Emlyn lives in Brighton with his wife Joanna Rees, who also writes under the name Josie Lloyd. We’re Going on a Bar Hunt and The Very Hungover Caterpillar, both parodies, written by Emlyn and Josie, and illustrated by the brilliant Gillian Johnson, are out now, published by Little, Brown.
He spent his early twenties traveling around Asia and pouring drinks in London for the likes of Sylvester Stallone and Princess Anne, before joining the Curtis Brown literary agency and having his first crime novel published aged twenty-five, his second a year later, and then co-writing seven comedies with Josie Lloyd, including the Number One Sunday Times bestseller Come Together.
Emlyn’s race-against-the-clock thriller, Hunted, was published in 2012 by Constable & Robinson in the UK and HarperCollins in the US. Hunted is optioned and in in development with Biting Point films, scripted and being directed by Eric Styles. The sequel, Wanted, was published in 2014 in the UK by Little, Brown and in the US by HarperCollins.
Emlyn lives in Brighton with his wife Joanna Rees, who also writes under the name Josie Lloyd. We’re Going on a Bar Hunt and The Very Hungover Caterpillar, both parodies, written by Emlyn and Josie, and illustrated by the brilliant Gillian Johnson, are out now, published by Little, Brown.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 12, 2015
This has been sitting on my bookshelves for years and I'm not quite sure why I've waited so long to actually read it.
This is an enjoyable read about growing up and morals, interspersed with drug culture in 90s Britain with a murder mystery thrown in for good measure.
Sometimes I need a nice and easy read and this was the perfect tonic for me. Finding out who the killer was/is is not the main focus of the book (and didn't come as any great surprise for me to be honest) but I particularly enjoyed the flashback chapters and the coming-of-age aspect of the novel.
I think this is one of Rees' early novels so would like to read some of his later stuff for comparison on writing styles.
This is an enjoyable read about growing up and morals, interspersed with drug culture in 90s Britain with a murder mystery thrown in for good measure.
Sometimes I need a nice and easy read and this was the perfect tonic for me. Finding out who the killer was/is is not the main focus of the book (and didn't come as any great surprise for me to be honest) but I particularly enjoyed the flashback chapters and the coming-of-age aspect of the novel.
I think this is one of Rees' early novels so would like to read some of his later stuff for comparison on writing styles.
March 7, 2022
The Short Answer
An average murder mystery with a decent premise that feels like it takes too long to get going and never really earns its ending. Though it has a pretty good ending, it's not worth the journey.
The Long Answer
A reporter for a men's magazine is sent to an small english town to do a report on a serial killer that's reappeared. He doesn't tell anyone, but he lived in the town earlier in his life, and has his own dark secrets to hide....
The idea is quite good. His boss, trying to do our reporter a favor, sends the reporter's girlfriend to join him for this trip as his photographer. She drags along two of their mutual friends as well in an attempt to do some matchmaking. However, no one knows the reporter used to live there, and that the original killings started right before he arrived and he wants to keep it that way.
So now we have a situation where he has to try and solve a mystery while hiding it from his girlfriend and friends which could lead to some fantastic hijinks. Except it never happens. He arrives a few days before his friends, has most of it sorted before they arrive. They get to hang around for all of two scenes before being tossed back to London. Other than giving the protagonist yet another thing to be anxious and mopey about they serve almost no purpose to the story at all. Even the matchmaking story doesn't go anywhere. The two friends involved fall for each other behind the scenes before they ever arrive thus removing any narrative use for the story.
This is a symptom of a problem the whole book faces. It's all setup with very little action. Halfway through the book I realized I still hadn't been introduced to the mystery properly yet. Our protagonist was still just walking through town trying to avoid people. There are a pile of flashback chapters at well, but they also take forever to get to any real point, and when they do it feels like a bit of a letdown. All that build up for something so small.
The characters are also quite flat. None of them ever get enough ink to really get any depth. The reporter pines over a girl from when he lived there a decade ago, which would be fine if there was some chemistry built up between them, but they only ever hang out once before he runs away. Hard to sympathize about a girl who's probably 90% fantasy anyway.
This book would have been way better if the author had condensed the first 200 pages into 10-20, and then used all that free space to flesh out the interesting stuff. Make the reporter actually solve the puzzle instead of just having clues handed to him while he mopes about his childhood ex. This premise had some potential, but it's best to leave this one on the shelf.
An average murder mystery with a decent premise that feels like it takes too long to get going and never really earns its ending. Though it has a pretty good ending, it's not worth the journey.
The Long Answer
A reporter for a men's magazine is sent to an small english town to do a report on a serial killer that's reappeared. He doesn't tell anyone, but he lived in the town earlier in his life, and has his own dark secrets to hide....
The idea is quite good. His boss, trying to do our reporter a favor, sends the reporter's girlfriend to join him for this trip as his photographer. She drags along two of their mutual friends as well in an attempt to do some matchmaking. However, no one knows the reporter used to live there, and that the original killings started right before he arrived and he wants to keep it that way.
So now we have a situation where he has to try and solve a mystery while hiding it from his girlfriend and friends which could lead to some fantastic hijinks. Except it never happens. He arrives a few days before his friends, has most of it sorted before they arrive. They get to hang around for all of two scenes before being tossed back to London. Other than giving the protagonist yet another thing to be anxious and mopey about they serve almost no purpose to the story at all. Even the matchmaking story doesn't go anywhere. The two friends involved fall for each other behind the scenes before they ever arrive thus removing any narrative use for the story.
This is a symptom of a problem the whole book faces. It's all setup with very little action. Halfway through the book I realized I still hadn't been introduced to the mystery properly yet. Our protagonist was still just walking through town trying to avoid people. There are a pile of flashback chapters at well, but they also take forever to get to any real point, and when they do it feels like a bit of a letdown. All that build up for something so small.
The characters are also quite flat. None of them ever get enough ink to really get any depth. The reporter pines over a girl from when he lived there a decade ago, which would be fine if there was some chemistry built up between them, but they only ever hang out once before he runs away. Hard to sympathize about a girl who's probably 90% fantasy anyway.
This book would have been way better if the author had condensed the first 200 pages into 10-20, and then used all that free space to flesh out the interesting stuff. Make the reporter actually solve the puzzle instead of just having clues handed to him while he mopes about his childhood ex. This premise had some potential, but it's best to leave this one on the shelf.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews