Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Red Water by Jurica Pavičić (Translator Matt Robinson)

 

Red Water (Bitter Lemon Press, June 24, 2025) starts out simply enough with the disappearance of Silva Vela on a late September Saturday in 1989 after a beach party. She had dined with her parents and twin brother as always; even when Silva was found to be missing Sunday morning, everyone was sure she had stayed with a friend overnight. But she didn’t return and the police were notified. No trace of her was found and her family slowly disintegrated. The official investigation was derailed by the Croatian War of Independence that officially began in 1991 with the secession of Croatia from Yugoslavia but the political unrest with the resulting impacts on daily life started well before then.

The book has four parts: the first with chapters from the perspective of each of Silva’s parents and her twin brother in 1989; the second with notes from her family, the police investigator, and suspects in her disappearance, all during the war and its aftermath; the last two parts with chapters from her family members and the original police investigator in 2015 and 2016.

The multiple points of view and the dramatic alteration in the country over the 25 years in question provide a striking narrative. The reader never does hear from Silva directly, so all we know is how other people saw her and how profoundly her disappearance affected everyone around her.

The translation is beautifully done, resulting in a story that flows smoothly despite the repeated changes in speaker and time. The resolution is as unexpected as it is satisfying.

Jurica Pavičić lives in Split, the second largest city in Croatia, formerly Yugoslavia. He is a novelist, screenwriter, short story writer, and journalist. His thrillers and crime novels mix social analysis and morally complex situations. His novels have won several Croatian literary awards. Crvena Voda [Red Water] (Profil Knjiga, 2017) received the Ksaver Šandor Gjalski Prize for best Croatian novel in 2018, and the Fric Prize for best Croatian fiction in 2019. In France, it won the Great Prize of Detective Literature 2021, the Prix Mystère de la critique 2022, Prix Le Point du polar européen 2021, and the Prix Transfuge for the best foreign crime novel 2021. This is the first of his books to be translated into English.

UK-born Matt Robinson moved to Belgrade to join the pioneering independent radio station B92 as a news presenter and editor. Between 2004 and 2018 he worked as a foreign correspondent for Reuters News. He now lives in Ljubljana, Slovenia, working as a freelance editor and literary translator.

London-based Bitter Lemon Press, publisher of the English translation of Red Water, has been shortlisted for the 2025 Crime Writers' Association Dagger for Best Crime & Mystery Publisher. https://thecwa.co.uk/awards-and-competitions/the-daggers/publishers-dagger/

The Crime Fiction Lover ezine conducted an interview with Pavičic in May:

https://crimefictionlover.com/2025/05/interview-jurica-pavicic/

The English translation is garnering one glowing review after another:

"This finely engineered, haunting novel has been deservedly garlanded with awards.” ---Financial Times

“A brilliant cocktail of mystery and recent history, compellingly told."--Kirkus

“The best crime fiction of 2025 so far: In this outstanding novel, Jurica Pavicic uses the unsolved disappearance of a teenage girl, Silva, to document the impact of the Yugoslav civil war." --Times/Sunday Times

 

• Publisher: ‎Bitter Lemon Press
• Publication date: ‎June 24, 2025
• Language: ‎English
• Print length: ‎402 pages
• ISBN-10: ‎1916725155
• ISBN-13: ‎978-1916725157

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/44fXuMd

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2025

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.