Reviewed by Rod McLary
Set in Cottesloe Beach and surrounds in Western Australia, this novel could not take place in a more beautiful setting but the storyline is at odds with the setting. The Shark is about a serial killer who targets teenage girls and the two teenage girls who are determined to track him down.
The killer targets young female swimmers and their subsequent injuries give the appearance of a shark mauling – hence the nickname given to the killer ‘the Shark’. Enter Rachel [known as Raych] and Carmen who both have dysfunctional backgrounds and know each other only from their time together in a psychiatric facility. They are intensely different from each other in temperament – Raych externalises her anger in violent acts as in smashing all the windows in an abandoned building whereas Carmen turns her anger inwards and has periods of time for which she can’t account.
Raych and Carmen both have difficult family circumstances. Carmen is adopted and has a fractious relationship with her adoptive mother and sister; Raych’s mother has died and her father is a FIFO worker in the mines and she has a somewhat difficult relationship with her younger sister. But both Raych and Carmen are determined to identify the Shark and both have links with him which drive that determination. Raych’s girlfriend Piper was one of the Shark’s victims.
The Shark is told through the voices of Raych and Carmen in alternating chapters. Each has a distinctive ‘voice’ and their disparate characters are well and truly evident. There is an honesty and authenticity in the narrative which is created by the girls’ natural speech. An example from Raych – Mate, I’m no young lady. There’s not a chance the cops believed his BS, either. I mean, sure, he’d grown up in Cottesloe – his parent’s house was there on Broome Street – but he didn’t live here anymore [37].
Raych’s strategy is to put herself in harm’s way with the intention of drawing the Shark to her. Consequently, she is wandering the streets in night and one night she is seen by Carmen – and together they form an uneasy alliance to achieve their common goal. And this is where the tension begins – the girls play cat-and-mouse with the person they believe is the Shark but is he? What is the significance of the abandoned cargo ship in the harbour and the missing dinghy? These questions and others are answered as the narrative proceeds to its conclusion – a very satisfactory one at that. There are twists and turns in the narrative which are as shocking as they are unexpected.
The author has crafted a crime thriller in which two teenage girls carry the story – the police are bystanders – but they are not in the mold of [say] Nancy Drew but have distinctive voices and motivations for tracking down a serial killer. And it is this which makes the novel one to be enjoyed.
The Shark
[2026]
by Emma Styles
Hachette
ISBN: 978 1 4087 2242 8
$34.99; 339pp