The Water Rituals by Eva Garcia Saenz

Author: Eva Garcia Saenz

Title: The Water Rituals 

Publisher: Berkley Publishing Corporation

Published: 2021

Pages: 400

Genre: Crime Thriller 

     A pregnant woman has been murdered in a brutal, ritualistic way: burned, hung, and then placed upside down in a Bronze Age cauldron. When Unai “Kraken” Lopez de Ayala discovers the victim is his first love, Ana Belén Liaño, memories of their time together come flooding back, and with them reminders of a dark secret long buried. Then the killer strikes again, enacting the same ritual against a second expectant parent. Kraken knows he must confront his past in order to unmask this fiend. And there’s no time to waste because Deputy Superintendent Díaz de Salvatierra has just found out she's carrying a child. And the father could very well be Kraken himself.

     This author first came to my attention when I watched the film adaption of The Silence of The White City. Only after discovering that it was in fact an adaptation, so doing what all good readers do I jumped online and search for a copy. That time going in obviously I was all too aware of the various twists and turns that lay before me. Never the less I still became completely absorbed into its story and could not put it down. Now jump forward a year and I saw that The Water Rituals was up for pre-order. So as you can imagine that went straight on order.  Now granted it has taken me a couple of weeks since it came to start reading it. But to be fair my to-be-read pile is completely out of control and I still have not only books from Christmas to read but also a slew of new recommendations. So in my head, two weeks is a fairly short amount of time between buying and reading, well for me at least. 

     So our lead, Kraken is a detective who has been broken down by the job. Now you might think well of course he is, all detectives in stories these days are. And yes that might be true but within this trilogy of books, we get to witness it happen in real-time. No having to wait for the next book to piece his trauma together. And as such, I think it binds us deeply to his character We have livid it alongside him. Every heartbreak and bullet wound we have been there for meaning we are left feeling that his wounds are ours too. At the end of the day, Saenz has crafted one of those astounding detectives that tick all the boxes we need to root for them. These are the ones that stick with us long after we have stopped reading and are left feeling elated when we can jump back into their stories. You know just to check they are doing alright and haven't befallen some great harm. 

     For some reason or another many of the novels, I've read and the tv shows I watched in recent months have all been set in northern Spain. It brings to bear a wholly different landscape than you might imagine. I think when we bring Spain to mind we imagine sun-drenched beaches and tourists. But here we get rolling mountains and rain that seems to last for days. the other reason I bring up this fact is that from my experience the crime shows and books set in this part of the country differ in their themes too. Whilst the south appears to be more gang-related and at their hearts tells about the drug world. In the north, we get serial killers and un-fathomable murders a plenty. But more than that these writers love to bring in the myths and legends of their given regions. For me, this adds a whole other element to these narratives. Ones I have no knowledge of and some a little more familiar to my English myths and legends and aside from the murders, it gives me another element one more piece in the puzzle that will keep me glued to the page. 

     When it comes to The Water Rituals it is one of those books that it really does help to have read the first one. For the most part, as it continues straight on from the events of The Silence in The White City. By this point, the charters are well known to us the readers and we get to see not only how they are coping after the gripping conclusion to the previous work but once more get to learn a bit more of who they are as people. By the end of this one, you start to feel like they as well as ourselves have become part of a very dysfunctional family. We live and breathe with them and care for what happens to them. This to me is what I hope to get from authors. I want to be able to connect no matter have far from my reality their heroes are. It is one that Saenz does well she allows you to become invested in them for better or worse. 

     For me, this was a different experience from the first book. I knew of nothing that was to happen and as such, I was left with a great perverse pleasure in feeling my way around this new killer. Delving into each twist and turn felt like the best rollercoaster you've been on. Her books are all on the fairly long side of crime fiction, and to me, I feel like they need this room to play. She not only creates worlds around her killers with all the myths and pomp that go with them. But she does her best to create rich and full lives for her heroes. As much as these books are about murders they are also about a time and place that these people inhabit. Now I have never been to where these books are set in Spain but through her writing, I think I have built up a fairly good idea of what they look and smell like even how they feel. ( obviously, I would imagine less brutal ritualistic murderers, at least one would imagine)  Now between these two points, I can't really hope to ask for much more from an author we are captivated by such books, these are the ones we tell our friends about with great glee.

     Now whilst I can't confess to having read this book in one sitting, I did race through it at some speed. Desperate to not only find out who was behind the murders but also find all the little clues tucked away not only for this book but for what is next to come. This is one of those books that for me when I reach the final page I was left slightly annoyed with myself for having rushed through it. I was left wishing I had a little more time to spend with them. Needless to say, I have now preordered the last in the series. This trilogy of books has so far more than earned its place on my forever self and I don't think I can give it a high recommendation than that.