Book Review: Sara Ochs' debut is strikingly assured and accomplished
Sara Ochs, author of 'The Dive''
- The Dive
- Sara Ochs
- Bantam, €15.99
This is a strikingly assured and accomplished debut. Sara Ochs clearly has a fine understanding of the conventions and possibilities of the psychological thriller. She has devised an intricate and satisfying puzzle here. In the manner of a more seasoned crime writer, she shows an awareness of when it is best to be evasive, elusive, coy. She has an instinct for the timing of her crucial revelations. This sense of timing is impeccable and highly dramatic.
She deploys two main narrators, Cass and Brooke. As is the norm in this genre both characters harbour huge, dangerous secrets. They are both unreliable narrators, albeit in different ways. Ochs skillfully plays on the contrasts between them. Cass is a scuba diving instructor, fragile and anxious, Brooke is more confident and a moderately successful social influencer. The fractured, confused but ultimately authentic relationship between them forms the emotional core of a sometimes cold novel. They both oscillate between revealing and concealing key information. There is a lot of distortion and obfuscation.
This is a novel about people "hiding their true selves". It is set in a fictitious Thai "party island“ called Koh Sang. The characters go to this remote place to flee from their questionable — often criminal — pasts. All the main characters have fundamental, crucial things to hide. The risk of the past being exposed and the inevitable catastrophic consequences make the stakes extremely high here.
Everyone is on edge, prepared to take risks, to compromise, to do whatever is expedient. Underneath the surface, much-touted friendships, it is a novel of bitterness, of slow-burning and corrosive anger. This is done with skill, stealth, and verve, and we remain suspicious of all the characters. Selfishness is everywhere. In many ways Ochs explores the illusion of friendship, the primacy and urgency of self-preservation and self-advancement.
The fragility of the relationships is emphasised time and again. Ultimately despite all the posturing of a gang, the characters are alone. They are hiding from each other. Class’s early reticence — even evasiveness — sets the tone. Slowly it becomes apparent she is somehow implicated in the death of her father and sister. It’s all shrouded in vagueness.
Despite the modernity and the youthful characters, the book is very much reminiscent of an Agatha Christie novel. There’s that feeling of impending doom from the beginning, a pervasive uneasiness. There is mistrust and fear under a veneer of civility and friendship. There’s the idyllic setting, the limited number of suspects. The characters are surrounded by natural beauty, but violence and death are about to intrude.
An established equilibrium is about to be shattered.
It is an intense and frantic read, exciting and edgy. You sense that it is not quite as emotionally involving as the author would like it to be. Plotting is definitely more developed than characterisation here. It’s undeniably ingenious, and Ochs shrewdly saves the finest twist for last. It is astonishing — monumental and gamechanging.
