The Night Swim

Welcome to my blog tour for The Night Swim 

My thoughts

Rating: 5

My thoughts
Rating: 5
Would I recommend it? Yes
Would I read more by this author? Yes
Side note I would like to add there might be a slight trigger warning since the story deals with rape as mental health.
As soon as I saw this on NetGalley I knew I would be request it because I loved her first book The Escape Room , and second I want to thank the publishers as well as NetGalley for letting me read and review it exchange for an honest review. Thirdly this isn't an easy story to read ,because this time the author brings to life a real topic that needs to be talked about, and not hidden in the shadows, she brings to life how a rape trial plays out in the courtroom, including jury games and victim shaming.And how the victims are always blamed or so it seems, which makes this a very dark and heavy type reading, as well as emotional . But this isn't just about one victim, this is about 2 different victims , and how in some ways their linked together, and a murder that happened so it could be a cover up. It brings to life how far someone will go to keep dark secrets from coming out, and no matter what eventually those secrets will find away to come out . But the biggest thing I liked about this story was how the author handle the harsh topic of rape with sensitivity and honest

About the Author
MEGAN GOLDIN worked as a correspondent for Reuters and other media outlets where she
covered war, peace, international terrorism and financial meltdowns in the Middle East and
Asia. She is now based in Melbourne, Australia where she raises three sons and is a foster
mum to Labrador puppies learning to be guide dogs. The Escape Room was her debut novel.

Social Links:
Author website
Twitter @megangoldin
Facebook megangoldinauthor/
Author Blog https://www.megangoldin.com/blog
GoodReads .Megan_Goldin

In The Night Swim, a new thriller from Megan Goldin, author of the “gripping and
unforgettable” (Harlen Coben) The Escape Room, a true crime podcast host covering a
controversial trial finds herself drawn deep into a small town’s dark past and a brutal crime
that took place there years before.
Ever since her true-crime podcast became an overnight sensation and set an innocent man free,
Rachel Krall has become a household name—and the last hope for people seeking justice. But she’s
used to being recognized for her voice, not her face. Which makes it all the more unsettling when
she finds a note on her car windshield, addressed to her, begging for help.
The new season of Rachel's podcast has brought her to a small town being torn apart by a
devastating rape trial. A local golden boy, a swimmer destined for Olympic greatness, has been
accused of raping the beloved granddaughter of the police chief. Under pressure to make Season 3
a success, Rachel throws herself into her investigation—but the mysterious letters keep coming.
Someone is following her, and she won’t stop until Rachel finds out what happened to her sister
twenty-five years ago. Officially, Jenny Stills tragically drowned, but the letters insist she was
murdered—and when Rachel starts asking questions, nobody in town wants to answer. The past
and present start to collide as Rachel uncovers startling connections between the two cases—and a
revelation that will change the course of the trial and the lives of everyone involved.
Electrifying and propulsive, The Night Swim asks: What is the price of a reputation? Can a small town ever right the wrongs of its past? And what really happened to Jenny?

Excerpt from The Night Swim by Megan Goldin

1
Hannah

It was Jenny’s death that killed my mother. Killed her as good as if she’d been shot in the chest
with a twelve-gauge shotgun. The doctor said it was the cancer. But I saw the will to live drain
out of her the moment the policeman knocked on our screen door.
“It’s Jenny, isn’t it?” Mom rasped, clutching the lapel of her faded dressing gown.
“Ma’am, I don’t know how to tell you other than to say it straight.” The policeman spoke in the
low-pitched melancholic tone he’d used moments earlier when he’d pulled up and told me to
wait in the patrol car as its siren lights painted our house streaks of red and blue.
Despite his request, I’d slipped out of the back seat and rushed to Mom’s side as she turned on
the front porch light and stepped onto the stoop, dazed from being woken late at night. I hugged
her withered waist as he told her what he had to say. Her body shuddered at each word.
His jaw was tight under strawberry blond stubble and his light eyes were watery by the time he
was done. He was a young cop. Visibly inexperienced in dealing with tragedy. He ran his
knuckles across the corners of his glistening eyes and swallowed hard.
“I’m s-s-sorry for your loss, ma’am,” he stammered when there was nothing left to say. The
finality of those words would reverberate through the years that followed.
But at that moment, as the platitudes still hung in the air, we stood on the stoop, staring at each
other, uncertain what to do as we contemplated the etiquette of death.
I tightened my small, girlish arms around Mom’s waist as she lurched blindly into the house.
Overcome by grief. I moved along with her. My arms locked around her. My face pressed
against her hollow stomach. I wouldn’t let go. I was certain that I was all that was holding her up.
She collapsed into the lumpy cushion of the armchair. Her face hidden in her clawed-up hands
and her shoulders shaking from soundless sobs.
I limped to the kitchen and poured her a glass of lemonade. It was all I could think to do. In our
family, lemonade was the Band-Aid to fix life’s troubles. Mom’s teeth chattered against the glass
as she tilted it to her mouth. She took a sip and left the glass teetering on the worn upholstery of
her armchair as she wrapped her arms around herself.

I grabbed the glass before it fell and stumbled toward the kitchen. Halfway there, I realized the
policeman was still standing at the doorway. He was staring at the floor. I followed his gaze. A
track of bloody footprints in the shape of my small feet was smeared across the linoleum floor.
He looked at me expectantly. It was time for me to go to the hospital like I’d agreed when I’d
begged him to take me home first so that I could be with Mom when she found out about Jenny.
I glared at him defiantly. I would not leave my mother alone that night. Not even to get medical
treatment for the cuts on my feet. He was about to argue the point when a garbled message
came through on his patrol car radio. He squatted down so that he was at the level of my eyes
and told me that he’d arrange for a nurse to come to the house as soon as possible to attend to
my injured feet. I watched through the mesh of the screen door as he sped away. The blare of
his police siren echoed long after his car disappeared in the dark.
The nurse arrived the following morning. She wore hospital scrubs and carried an oversized
medical bag. She apologized for the delay, telling me that the ER had been overwhelmed by an
emergency the previous night and nobody could get away to attend to me. She sewed me up
with black sutures and wrapped thick bandages around my feet. Before she left, she warned me
not to walk, because the sutures would pop. She was right. They did.
Jenny was barely sixteen when she died. I was five weeks short of my tenth birthday. Old
enough to know that my life would never be the same. Too young to understand why.
I never told my mother that I’d held Jenny’s cold body in my arms until police officers swarmed
over her like buzzards and pulled me away. I never told her a single thing about that night. Even
if I had, I doubt she would have heard. Her mind was in another place.
We buried my sister in a private funeral. The two of us and a local minister, and a couple of
Mom’s old colleagues who came during their lunch break, wearing their supermarket cashier
uniforms. At least they’re the ones that I remember. Maybe there were others. I can’t recall. I
was so young.
The only part of the funeral that I remember clearly was Jenny’s simple coffin resting on a patch
of grass alongside a freshly dug grave. I took off my hand-knitted sweater and laid it out on top
of the polished casket. “Jenny will need it,” I told Mom. “It’ll be cold for her in the ground.”
We both knew how much Jenny hated the cold. On winter days when bitter drafts tore through
gaps in the patched-up walls of our house, Jenny would beg Mom to move us to a place where
summer never ended.
A few days after Jenny’s funeral, a stone-faced man from the police department arrived in a
creased gabardine suit. He pulled a flip-top notebook from his jacket and asked me if I knew
what had happened the night that Jenny died.

My eyes were downcast while I studied each errant thread in the soiled bandages wrapped
around my feet. I sensed his relief when after going through the motions of asking more
questions and getting no response he tucked his empty notebook into his jacket pocket and
headed back to his car.
I hated myself for my stubborn silence as he drove away. Sometimes when the guilt overwhelms
me, I remind myself that it was not my fault. He didn’t ask the right questions and I didn’t know
how to explain things that I was too young to understand.
This year we mark a milestone. Twenty-five years since Jenny died. A quarter of a century and
nothing has changed. Her death is as raw as it was the day we buried her. The only difference
is that I won’t be silent anymore.
2
Rachel
A single streak of white cloud marred an otherwise perfect blue sky as Rachel Krall drove her
silver SUV on a flat stretch of highway toward the Atlantic Ocean. Dead ahead on the horizon
was a thin blue line. It widened as she drove closer until Rachel knew for certain that it was the
sea.
Rachel glanced uneasily at the fluttering pages of the letter resting on the front passenger seat
next to her as she zoomed along the right lane of the highway. She was deeply troubled by the
letter. Not so much by the contents, but instead by the strange, almost sinister way the letter
had been delivered earlier that morning.
After hours on the road, she’d pulled into a twenty-four-hour diner where she ordered a mug of
coffee and pancakes that came covered with half-thawed blueberries and two scoops of vanilla
ice cream, which she pushed to the side of her plate. The coffee was bitter, but she drank it
anyway. She needed it for the caffeine, not the taste. When she finished her meal, she ordered
an extra-strong iced coffee and a muffin to go in case her energy flagged on the final leg of the
drive.
While waiting for her takeout order, Rachel applied eye drops to revive her tired green eyes and
twisted up her shoulder-length auburn hair to get it out of her face. Rachel was tying her hair
into a topknot when the waitress brought her order in a white paper bag before rushing off to
serve a truck driver who was gesticulating angrily for his bill.
Rachel left a larger than necessary tip for the waitress, mostly because she felt bad at the way
customers hounded the poor woman over the slow service. Not her fault, thought Rachel. She’d

waitressed through college and knew how tough it was to be the only person serving tables
during an unexpected rush.
By the time she pushed open the swinging doors of the restaurant, Rachel was feeling full and
slightly queasy. It was bright outside and she had to shield her eyes from the sun as she
headed to her car. Even before she reached it, she saw something shoved under her windshield
wiper. Assuming it was an advertising flyer, Rachel abruptly pulled it off her windshield. She was
about to crumple it up unread when she noticed her name had been neatly written in bold
lettering: Rachel Krall (from the Guilty or Not Guilty podcast).
Rachel received thousands of emails and social media messages every week. Most were
charming and friendly. Letters from fans. A few scared the hell out of her. Rachel had no idea
which category the letter would fall into, but the mere fact that a stranger had recognized her
and left a note addressed to her on her car made her decidedly uncomfortable.
Rachel looked around in case the person who’d left the letter was still there. Waiting. Watching
her reaction. Truck drivers stood around smoking and shooting the breeze. Others checked the
rigging of the loads on their trucks. Car doors slammed as motorists arrived. Engines rumbled to
life as others left. Nobody paid Rachel any attention, although that did little to ease the eerie
feeling she was being watched.
It was rare for Rachel to feel vulnerable. She’d been in plenty of hairy situations over the years.
A month earlier, she’d spent the best part of an afternoon locked in a high-security prison cell
talking to an uncuffed serial killer while police marksmen pointed automatic rifles through a hole
in the ceiling in case the prisoner lunged at her during the interview. Rachel hadn’t so much as
broken into a sweat the entire time. Rachel felt ridiculous that a letter left on her car had
unnerved her more than a face-to-face meeting with a killer.
Deep down, Rachel knew the reason for her discomfort. She had been recognized. In public. By
a stranger. That had never happened before. Rachel had worked hard to maintain her
anonymity after being catapulted to fame when the first season of her podcast became a
cultural sensation, spurring a wave of imitation podcasts and a national obsession with true
crime.
In that first season, Rachel had uncovered fresh evidence that proved that a high school teacher
had been wrongly convicted for the murder of his wife on their second honeymoon. Season 2
was even more successful when Rachel had solved a previously unsolvable cold case of a
single mother of two who was bashed to death in her hair salon. By the time the season had
ended, Rachel Krall had become a household name.
Despite her sudden fame, or rather because of it, she deliberately kept a low profile. Rachel’s
name and broadcast voice were instantly recognizable, but people had no idea what she looked

like or who she was when she went to the gym, or drank coffee at her favorite cafe, or pushed a
shopping cart through her local supermarket.
The only public photos of Rachel were a series of black-and-white shots taken by her
ex-husband during their short-lived marriage when she was at grad school. The photos barely
resembled her anymore, maybe because of the camera angle, or the monochrome hues, or
perhaps because her face had become more defined as she entered her thirties.
In the early days, before the podcast had taken off, they’d received their first media request for a
photograph of Rachel to run alongside an article on the podcast’s then-cult following. It was her
producer Pete’s idea to use those dated photographs. He had pointed out that reporting on true
crime often attracted cranks and kooks, and even the occasional psychopath. Anonymity, they’d
agreed, was Rachel’s protection. Ever since then she’d cultivated it obsessively, purposely
avoiding public-speaking events and TV show appearances so that she wouldn’t be recognized
in her private life.
That was why it was unfathomable to Rachel that a random stranger had recognized her well
enough to leave her a personalized note at a remote highway rest area where she’d stopped on
a whim. Glancing once more over her shoulder, she ripped open the envelope to read the letter
inside:
Dear Rachel,
I hope you don’t mind me calling you by your first name. I feel that I know you so well.
She recoiled at the presumed intimacy of the letter. The last time she’d received fan mail in that
sort of familiar tone, it was from a sexual sadist inviting her to pay a conjugal visit at his
maximum-security prison.
Rachel climbed into the driver’s seat of her car and continued reading the note, which was
written on paper torn from a spiral notebook.
I’m a huge fan, Rachel. I listened to every episode of your podcast. I truly believe that you are
the only person who can help me. My sister Jenny was killed a long time ago. She was only
sixteen. I’ve written to you twice to ask you to help me. I don’t know what I’ll do if you say no
again.
Rachel turned to the last page. The letter was signed: Hannah. She had no recollection of
getting Hannah’s letters, but that didn’t mean much. If letters had been sent, they would have
gone to Pete or their intern, both of who vetted the flood of correspondence sent to the podcast
email address. Occasionally Pete would forward a letter to Rachel to review personally.

In the early days of the podcast, Rachel had personally read all the requests for help that came
from either family or friends frustrated at the lack of progress in their loved ones’ homicide
investigations, or prisoners claiming innocence and begging Rachel to clear their names. She’d
made a point of personally responding to each letter, usually after doing preliminary research,
and often by including referrals to not-for-profit organizations that might help.
But as the requests grew exponentially, the emotional toll of desperate people begging Rachel
for help overwhelmed her. She’d become the last hope of anyone who’d ever been let down by
the justice system. Rachel discovered firsthand that there were a lot of them and they all wanted
the same thing. They wanted Rachel to make their case the subject of the next season of her
podcast, or at the very least, to use her considerable investigative skills to right their wrong.
Rachel hated that most of the time she could do nothing other than send empty words of
consolation to desperate, broken people. The burden of their expectations became so crushing
that Rachel almost abandoned the podcast. In the end, Pete took over reviewing all
correspondence to protect Rachel and to give her time to research and report on her podcast
stories.
The letter left on her windshield was the first to make it through Pete’s human firewall. This
piqued Rachel’s interest, despite the nagging worry that made her double-lock her car door as
she continued reading from behind the steering wheel.
It was Jenny’s death that killed my mother [the letter went on]. Killed her as good as if she’d
been shot in the chest with a twelve-gauge shotgun.
Though it was late morning on a hot summer’s day and her car was heating up like an oven,
Rachel felt a chill run through her.
I’ve spent my life running away from the memories. Hurting myself. And others. It took the trial in
Neapolis to make me face up to my past. That is why I am writing to you, Rachel. Jenny’s killer
will be there. In that town. Maybe in that courtroom. It’s time for justice to be done. You’re the
only one who can help me deliver it.
The metallic crash of a minibus door being pushed open startled Rachel. She tossed the pages
on the front passenger seat and hastily reversed out of the parking spot.
She was so engrossed in thinking about the letter and the mysterious way that it was delivered
that she didn’t notice she had merged onto the highway and was speeding until she came out of
her trancelike state and saw metal barricades whizzing past in a blur. She’d driven more than
ten miles and couldn’t remember any of it. Rachel slowed down, and dialed Pete.

No answer. She put him on auto redial but gave up after the fourth attempt when he still hadn’t
picked up. Ahead of her, the widening band of blue ocean on the horizon beckoned at the end
of the long, flat stretch of highway. She was getting close to her destination.
Rachel looked into her rearview mirror and noticed a silver sedan on the road behind her. The
license plate number looked familiar. Rachel could have sworn that she’d seen the same car
before over the course of her long drive. She changed lanes. The sedan changed lanes and
moved directly behind her. Rachel sped up. The car sped up. When she braked, the car did,
too. Rachel dialed Pete again. Still no answer.
“Damn it, Pete.” She slammed her hands on the steering wheel.
The sedan pulled out and drove alongside her. Rachel turned her head to see the driver. The
window was tinted and reflected the glare of the sun as the car sped ahead, weaving between
lanes until it was lost in a sea of vehicles. Rachel slowed down as she entered traffic near a
giant billboard on a grassy embankment that read: WELCOME TO NEAPOLIS. YOUR
GATEWAY TO THE CRYSTAL COAST.
Neapolis was a three-hour drive north of Wilmington and well off the main interstate highway
route. Rachel had never heard of the place until she’d chosen the upcoming trial there as the
subject of the hotly anticipated third season of Guilty or Not Guilty.
She pulled to a stop at a red traffic light and turned on the car radio. It automatically tuned into a
local station running a talkback slot in between playing old tracks of country music on a lazy
Saturday morning. She surveyed the town through the glass of her dusty windshield. It had a
charmless grit that she’d seen in a hundred other small towns she’d passed through over her
thirty-two years. The same ubiquitous gas station signs. Fast-food stores with grimy windows.
Tired shopping strips of run-down stores that had long ago lost the war with the malls.
“We have a caller on the line,” the radio host said, after the final notes of acoustic guitar had
faded away. “What’s your name?”
“Dean.”
“What do you want to talk about today, Dean?”
“Everyone is so politically correct these days that nobody calls it as they see it. So I’m going to
say it straight out. That trial next week is a disgrace.”
“Why do you say that?” asked the radio announcer.
“Because what the heck was that girl thinking!”

“You’re blaming the girl?”
“Hell yeah. It’s not right. A kid’s life is being ruined because a girl got drunk and did something
dumb that she regretted afterward. We all regret stuff. Except we don’t try to get someone put in
prison for our screw-ups.”
“The police and district attorney obviously think a crime has been committed if they’re bringing it
to trial,” interrupted the host testily.
“Don’t get me wrong. I feel bad for her and all. Hell, I feel bad for everyone in this messed-up
situation. But I especially feel bad for that Blair boy. Everything he worked for has gone up in
smoke. And he ain’t even been found guilty yet. Fact is, this trial is a waste. It’s a waste of time.
And it’s a waste of our taxes.”
“Jury selection might be over, but the trial hasn’t begun, Dean,” snapped the radio announcer.
“There’s a jury of twelve fine citizens who will decide his guilt or innocence. It’s not up to us, or
you, to decide.”
“Well, I sure hope that jury has their heads screwed on right, because there’s no way that
anyone with a shred of good old-fashioned common sense will reach a guilty verdict. No way.”
The caller’s voice dropped out as the first notes of a hit country-western song hit the airwaves.
The announcer’s voice rose over the music. “It’s just after eleven A.M. on what’s turning out to
be a very humid Saturday morning in Neapolis. Everyone in town is talking about the Blair trial
that starts next week. We’ll take more callers after this little tune.”

Buy Links:
Macmillan
Books-A-Million
Barnes & Noble

Amazon