A review by thebakerbookworm
The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

This book started off slow but trust me—the plot picks up a lot. There came a point where I was reading so quickly that I didn’t have time to form theories, I just wanted to know what was going to happen! I will say, parts were a little spookier than I was expecting and made me nervous reading it at night 🙈

You’re introduced to a lot of characters pretty early on and it did take a while for me to keep them all straight (thank you, handy character guide). But I loved that each of these characters were well fleshed out. They don’t all get development, but they’re all fully formed, complex people. Our main character, Arent, does get some nice development, but Sara was really the stand-out character for me. And I loved her relationship with her daughter.

So overall, a clever mystery with characters you can root for and a fascinating setting. And the ending was just perfect!

Read if you like: Sherlock Holmes or other detective duos, locked-room mysteries, historical fiction that is focused more on the fiction than the historical.
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