by Hannah Tunnicliffe
Publisher: Ultimo Press, 2025
Review
by Erina Reddan
The Pool is a crime read with a difference, told as it is from so many perspectives. It weaves a complex web around ordinary people whose lives and hearts have been torn apart by a tragic event. Set in the suburb of Hawthorn, this domestic noir novel brings together four wealthy middle-class neighbouring families on a hot day around a barbecue, a pool, and plenty of relationship intrigue. In the fraught tension of heat, children, and judgement, something unspeakable happens. Nine years later, there is a kind of reunion gathering, but this too is overshadowed because one of the invitees, the alpha-masculine spin doctor, Baz King, goes missing. It’s clear that very few liked him, including his current and former wives.
At first, I found it hard to keep up with the vast number of characters, but once settled in, I enjoyed the layering these many voices bring to the central story. For this reason, though, I recommend you don’t leave too many days between reading bouts, just so you can keep the story world fresh in your mind. There were times, however, that I wanted more of a particular character. One of the strengths of The Pool is that underneath the ordinary daily events is a beating drum of unexpected and clever political intrigue which finally bursts forth at the climax, making sense of much that has been hidden.
Another strength of The Pool is how it cleverly sets the veneer of ordinary everyday living, cutting lunches, picking up kids, and going to the gym against the deeper, darker shadows across these people’s lives, rending those shadows all the more stark.
I found the voice of the missing Baz King particularly arresting because even in his own words, he’s hard to like, and yet he holds the key to the mystery, and the story twists around him in a surprising way.
The dance between simplicity and complexity makes The Pool a satisfying read.
Publisher’s blurb
Prince of spin and life of the party, Baz King, is missing. Nine years ago, at an innocent summer barbecue in Melbourne, everything imploded. For the Kings and the four other young families there that fateful day, marriages fractured, friendships crumbled, and lives were upended.
Nothing would ever be the same.
Now in their forties and their children teenagers, Baz King cannot be found. Has his charm finally run out? With a history of dodgy dealings and no shortage of motives, anyone could be a suspect – his ex-wife, Birdie; his colleague, Alex Turner; his lover, Jess, and her husband, Richard; his friend’s nanny and new wife, Madison – who wants him out of the picture?
A biting domestic noir, The Pool examines the enduring shrapnel of tragedy: if you witness the worst thing imaginable, how does it change you? Could it make you a murderer?