That Day by the Pool
Published 2026-08-28 11:06:06
Book info
- Author
- Year 2026
- Genre Mystery
- Format Ebook
- Pages 338
If something has been covered up for eighty years, someone, somewhere, knows why….
One cold January weekend in 2019, Nicole Weymouth and her fiancé, Dan, visit a boutique hotel in The Lake District. During the Second World War it was a boarding school for young boys evacuated from London.
When a letter falls out of a book Nicole finds in the library, she discovers it was written in 1940 by an eight-year-old boy, Peter Slaithwaite, and he is asking his parents to bring him home because of the horrors he has experienced.
The letter was never sent.
Still traumatised by the memory of her younger brother’s death when she was a child, Nicole resolves to find out what led Peter to write the letter. The search she embarks upon takes her on a journey full of surprises and terrible consequences for her, her loved ones and all those involved in her investigations.
Thoughts
They say to never judge a book by its cover and this is a prime example of why. The book is called That Day by the Pool, and the cover has a menacing looking swimming pool on it, so you think something's going to happen at a pool, don't you? Well no, something did happen at a pool a long time ago that affected the main character, but the book has nothing to do with that really.
Instead, we're investigating a decades old mystery about horrors perpetrated at a boys boarding school. There are two ways this book lost me and this was the first - they are, undoubtedly, terrible things that went on, but they absolutely do not justify the obsession that follows. What does Nicole really think is going to happen? What justice is really going to be served? There should be no statute of limitations on crimes, I agree, but how we get to where we get to from the finding of a letter seems wildly disproportionate to what's described.
The second problem is with the character. She makes no sense. She repeatedly says she's going to stop investigating, and continues. Over and over. Just make a decision, please! And at one point she cries: "How was I to know it was my bloody boyfriend's family at the heart of it?" Well, the fact they were all there at the time, and they are pressuring you to stop investigating, and change the subject every time you bring it up?
Her priorities seem all messed up. In the big showdown at the end:
Martin walked towards her. "Dan, could you come and get your girlfriend? I haven't finished my speech." "I'm not just his girlfriend. I'm his fiancee."
Is that what's important right now?
Going into this book with the right expectations would help get more enjoyment out of it - it's a boarding school abuse mystery, not a poolside thriller. Plus, there are a few good twists and turns (particularly in the final chapters, it actually made it worth getting to the end for). For some readers, a heroine who makes things worse adds to the enjoyment - not for me.
I'm pushing this down to a 2 out of 5 because the premise doesn't warrant the full investigation and drama that follows, and the heroine makes every wrong decision going.
Rating: 2 / 5