Sixteen year old Dan Moore arrives with his recently-divorced mum, Jude, at a caravan park on the Norfolk coast for a week’s holiday. It’s late summer of 1985. They’ve had a tough year and the prospect of a few days’ escape of sun, fun and relaxation feels like just the tonic they need. Dan quickly hits it off with Charlie, a girl of a similar age who lives at the holiday resort, and his mum becomes romantically involved with a local property developer. However things take a sinister turn when one of the camp attendants goes missing, only for her body to be discovered several days later near the town’s derelict lido…

Still Waters Run is the fourth novel published by The Book Folk from the pen of Mark West, following Don’t Go Back, Only Watching You and The Hunter’s Quarry. Like the previous books, this one too features a superb blend of punchy suspenseful prose, edge-of-your-seat plot twists and masterful characterisation. West’s pacing is always spot on, but this one takes its time to set up the scenario and introduce the characters, an assured opening that confirms how totally in control of his craft the author is. This also allows the location to become a vivid element of the story, something that enhances the atmosphere and adds a clear distinction to the narrative.

I really enjoyed the nostalgia of this piece, and the prose is peppered with pop-culture references and long-forgotten (at least to this reader) song titles. I’ve always been a sucker for coming-of-age stories and West yet again delivers with this latest novel, one that successfully ticks all the required boxes for a suspenseful thriller. There’s an interesting romantic aspect for Jude here too, and one that has much to say about the desires and vulnerabilities of middle-aged characters, an angle that is often neglected in crime fiction.

I will hold my hand up and admit that I thought I had guessed the twist but, alas, I was wrong, as the author managed to throw in subtle aspects of misdirection that completely wrongfooted me. You can almost feel the salt tang on your lips as you follow the exploits of Dan and Charlie’s investigation into the mysterious death, which at first feels reminiscent of those teenage detective stories from my youth (such as The Three Investigators or the Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew) but quickly develops into something much darker as the story progresses to its thrilling conclusion. I had a real blast reading this. West has a flair for creating realistically vulnerable characters and throwing them into terrifying situations, and this feels like his most accomplished novel yet. As such, this comes highly recommended.