Our setting is Giverny where Claude Monet lived and where tourists flock to for the history and beauty. After the tourists have gone there is a darker side to Giverny. This starts on day one with a murder and continues to day thirteen with another murder, what is going on Giverny? There are three women who are the main characters involved, all of them know the secret of Giverny, can they stop the murders?
‘Black Water Lilies’ is another engrossing thriller from Bussi although I did not find it as thrilling as the phenomenal ‘After the Crash’. There is a lot going on in this book and I did find it quite confusing at times, the ending especially is confusing. Throughout the book there are time periods being muddled up which only added to my confusion but there is a very good reason for this and once this was unveiled everything became clear and made for an excellent plot.
Although this is a thriller with two murders there is not a lot of action that goes in the thirteen days that we follow the characters, instead there is a lot of looking at their pasts and the secrets that they all share. At times ‘Black Water Lilies’ was slow and I found it hard to keep going, again due to the lack of something happening. However there is a very real beautiful atmosphere to this book and it did make for enjoyable reading, getting thrown into the art world and a quaint village was pleasant as well. Having said this I think Bussi could have done more with the art that is the basis of the book and I felt this was missing.
The two main policemen are intriguing characters and as they are new to working with each other it was enjoyable to read about them forming a relationship and working out how they were going to work together. They provided humour as well as narration of the investigation and seemed realistic. The characters of Fanette and Stephanie however I could not get on board with. They did not come across as realistic and Stephanie especially was irritating and I did not care what happened to her. This book could have done with more fleshed out characters that had something likeable about them.
Overall ‘Black Water Lilies’ is a gratifying thriller but it suffers from too much confusion and a slow pace.
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