A masterpiece!” Libération
“As inspiring as the Swedes Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. Pavičić brilliantly resorts to the noir novel to accompany ordinary lives caught in the collapse of communism, the rise of nationalism and the shock of wars.” Le Monde
“The city of Split is more than a setting, almost a character. A tourist mirage in the summer, the Croatian port is confronted, out of season, with the aftermath of war, deindustrialisation, and all kinds of depravity. Beyond the family drama and the police investigation, the metamorphosis of Croatia interests Pavičić.” Telerama
“Best International Crime Novels of 2025: In this epic tale, a family’s thirty-year quest to discover the fate of their missing daughter intertwines with the saga of Yugoslavia’s violent dissolution and the following rapacious rush to fill Croatia’s Dalmatian Coast with luxury resorts. When 17-year-old Silva first vanishes in 1989, the investigation is soon stymied by the vast upheavals of the 1990s, and it will take decades of searching before we learn the final, heartbreaking answer. The novel’s strengths lie in its relentless drive, clear-eyed judgement, and focus on empathy: every action is understandable, yet none are forgivable.”---Crime Reads
“One evening in the winter of 1991 I was having dinner in Zagreb with fellow foreign correspondent. Croatia was at war, bombarded by the Yugoslav army. The streets were crowded with soldiers and refugees. But there was no shortage of food. We asked the waiter which fish was available. "Croatian fish," he replied, his stare hard. How can a fish have a nationality, I silently wondered. Quite easily, I later realised, when your homeland and its coastline are being strafed and bombed. Pavičić’s outstanding crime thriller Red Water (Bitter Lemon £9.99) opens in September 1989 as Yugoslavia’s communist dictatorship collapses. The rest of central and eastern Europe is preparing for freedom and democracy. Yugoslavia’s republics are preparing for war. The politics, though, are a backdrop, on which Pavičić paints a profoundly human story of loss and longing. When 17-year-old Silva disappears, her family is thrown into turmoil. Has she run away or been murdered? Either seems possible. Her father, Jakov, and twin brother, Mate, search frantically for her in vain. But Silva, it is soon revealed, is not an innocent but was dealing drugs.
Jakov eventually gives up but Mate never does, criss-crossing Europe for years. Pavičić weaves the fallout of Silva’s disappearance against the backdrop of the Balkan wars and their aftermath into a gripping, seamless narrative. It is not until 2015 that Silva’s fate is revealed in a dark, wholly unexpected twist. Yugoslavia needed Tito and communism to remain united. Silva’s family needed her to hold it together. Without her, it eventually disintegrates, breaking up, like the country, into its constituent parts. Yet the story also ends with the promise of redemption. This finely engineered, haunting novel has been deservedly garlanded with awards.” ---Financial Times
“Best crime novel of 2025. In 1989 Croatia was part of Yugoslavia, but the villages of the Dalmatian coast, with their spectacular beaches, were about to be drawn into civil war. In this outstanding novel, Jurica Pavicic uses the unsolved disappearance of a teenage girl, Silva, to document the impact of the conflict. The investigation falters when communism collapses and the lead detective, whose grandfather was a hero of the old regime, loses his job. The son of the local baker is ostracised thanks to gossip about his relationship with the missing girl and it’s a relief when he’s drafted into the army. Silva’s parents grow apart as her mother insists her husband and son distribute posters and follow up possible sightings. The course of their lives is changed as much by Silva’s absence and the stories they tell themselves to account for it as it is by the disintegration of Yugoslavia. Pavicic is from Split and his novel borrows the crime genre to offer insights into his country’s history.” ----Times/Sunday Times, Joan Smith
“Another very different setting is offered by Jurica Pavičić’s excellent Red Water, a work that won a number of French prizes in 2021-2. 17-year-old Silva Vela disappears from her small Croatian hometown in 1989 after a party followed by sex. Her murder is suspected and this is skilfully traced through the complex dynamics of her hometown. Unexpectedly, her departure by bus from Split is eventually revealed which leads her twin brother, Mate, on a long search for her, one that by 2017 has thrown up many unexpected turns and shone a light on place, people and change, not least a seaside of wind and a deceptive opening from a world mentally closed but assailed by time. Ethnic tension, drugs, greed for land, and police rivalries all play a role, as does chance. The story is stretched through the transformative changes of revolution and war from 1989, with characters thrown together or apart by the changes and then seeking their way in the new-old society. Very ably written, for example, in Adrijan’s account of the ultimately explosive invasion of Bosnia in 1995, or of Gorki, a well-connected policeman turned agent for Irish land speculators, as in 2004, he comes up against the determination of the elderly to retain family plots. More memorable for its psychological insights, moral weight, and Tolstoyian quality (without the length). This is the only one of his nine novels I have read. His work deserves translation.” The Critic
“Jurica Pavičić lives in Split, where parts of this novel are set. He is known in Croatia for ‘his unorthodox thrillers … social analysis with deep insights into morally complex situations’; Red Water is no exception to that assessment. It’s the first of Pavičić’s novels to be published in English (in an excellent and highly readable translation by Matt Robinson) and it’s brilliantly told in meticulous and absorbing detail. The novel is set in a small Croatian coastal town – Misto – which has seen better days and will see even worse ones as Yugoslavia, as it then was, descends into political chaos and civil war. The timeline begins in late September 1989 on the day a 17-year old local girl vanishes. Silva Vela is beautiful, popular and wild at heart, but what has happened to her is a mystery: has she been abducted or killed? Or has she just done a runner? The evidence points several ways. The story is told through the reactions of her family – mother Vesna, father Jakov, twin brother Mate; by the actions of the townspeople; through the attitude and actions of the police inspector, Gorki Šain, and of Silva’s acquaintances and college friends in Split, the regional capital. It will take over thirty years for the truth finally to emerge. The family is shattered and refuses to believe Silva is dead: they don’t believe the police are trying hard enough to find the missing girl, so Jakov and Mate flood the town, the locality and the city of Split, with photos of Silva, hoping for a break-through –information that will lead them to her. But nothing. And then something that shatters the family even more deeply: Inspector Šain reveals their fun-loving, impudent daughter had a very dark side to her life. They have discovered a stash of heroin in a drainpipe beside the house: ‘It was a small brown bundle … Inspector Šain cut through the tape and a brown powder spilled … onto the table. [Jakov] said nothing. Vesna said nothing but looked at Mate … scowling, full of accusatory rage. A look that said, “You must have known something.”’It’s clear that, even if Silva wasn’t using, she was certainly dealing. A local boy she was dancing with the night before she disappeared is questioned, arrested, then released; her regular boyfriend has a solid alibi: nothing the police turns up explains her disappearance and the trail goes cold. As time passes, the family begins to fall apart: Vesna refuses to talk about what has happened; Jakov retreats from the search; only Mate soldiers on. The break-up reflects that of Yugoslavia: the collapse of Communism, the civil war, and the emergence of an independent Croatia; a backdrop of political upheaval that disrupts families, jobs, and Inspector Šain’s investigation, which is abandoned. Even so, Silva’s memory hovers over every event for the Velas: Mate’s marriage, the birth of his daughter Tina and Jakov’s realisation that, as he watches Tina deal with a quarrel on her eleventh birthday, he sees a new Silva: ‘her pompous manner … the contours of her face … her thin eyebrows and long jaw … what he was looking at was a copy of Silva … she’d always had the last word.’ It’s no spoiler if I reveal the novel is in four parts: ‘Silva Disappears’; ‘Diverging Paths’ – which follows the lives of all those involved over the next twenty years; ‘Silva Returns’; and ‘Red Water’– a final plot twist that hit me like a kick in the teeth. Exactly what happens is for you to find out. But what the ending reveals is how all the characters in this tale of human passion and inadequacy are at the mercy of events taking place far from their home base – but which resonate and reverberate across the years and the miles and change their lives, not always for the better. It is an eye-opener in terms of the events that shaped late twentieth-century Croatia; and it is a tribute to Bitter Lemon that they selected a novel from this little-understood country for their annual shortlist of translations.”---ELN, Riveting Reviews
“An unsolved disappearance and Croatia’s independence overlap in Jurica Pavičić’s expansive novel Red Water. In 1989, Silva disappears near Split, then part of Yugoslavia. A lengthy hunt ensues, continuing decades after the turbulent Yugoslav War. A large cast searches for Silva, including her parents, Mate (her twin brother), Gorki (the overseeing police officer), and Brane (her boyfriend). Matter-of-factness envelops the early prose; veering into procedural territory, Mate’s initial inquiries after Silva are list-like, noting specific times and his accompanying investigative activities. Spikes of emotion punctuate the book’s progression, as when Silva’s father feels the impulse to beat Silva’s roommate to death after her callous declaration “She had it coming.” As the story progresses, the pervasive atmosphere of loss and alienation intensifies. Still searching for Silva long after almost everyone else has given up, Mate likens his also-persistent mother, Vesna, to “the last keeper of a castle abandoned by its guards. But their ghosts remained. The house was a mausoleum of their mummified shadows.” Cultural and political hostilities and trends intertwine with personal grievances as the book continues. Vesna’s rage spews over while she’s observing a group of new war recruits, which include Adrijan, a man suspected of murdering Silva. By chance, Adrijan later sees Silva’s missing poster in a distant war zone. After the Yugoslav War, Gorki is drawn back home, but now he acts on behalf of a predatory land developer to buy up land from vulnerable locals. The final parts of the book, if still aching, are surprising as they resolve numerous earlier coincidences and bits of misinformation to form a more complete timeline of Silva’s fate. In the historical mystery novel Red Water, a girl’s disappearance is measured against the befores and afters of independent Croatia’s formation.”—Foreword Reviews
“A brilliant cocktail of mystery and recent history, compellingly told. The mysterious disappearance of a young woman shadows several people in her life for decades. Pavičić’s award-winning novel, first published in Croatia in 2017, unfolds like a true-crime story, with precise attention to timelines and small details. In “Part 1: Silva Disappears,” 17-year-old Silva Vela vanishes from the village of Misto on a September morning in 1989, with the crisis presented through the viewpoints of her mother, Vesna, father, Jakov, and twin brother, Mate. The police are brought in, suspects are questioned, and Jakov hires a private detective, all to no avail. "Part 2: Diverging Paths," covering the next 20 years, expands its perspective to include several other characters, including two of the original suspects in Silva’s disappearance. Adrijan Lekaj, who was arrested, served in the tragic Bosnian War, continues to wonder about Silva, and has a strange, random encounter with fellow suspect Mario Cvitković. As family members soldier on, the sweet sadness of remembering Silva hovers. Mate marries, Vesna approaches the end of her teaching career, but “they never found her.” Gorki, the young policeman who moved away after being originally assigned to the case, returns to Misto and finds it much changed. Silva’s disappearance is a lens or metaphor for the nation’s recent dark history. In Part 3, “Silva Returns.” Exactly how is left for the reader to discover. "Part 4: Red Water” offers a final twist on the story through a new character and a poignant look back at Croatia’s last 30 years.”----Kirkus Reviews
"During the 1990s when Yugoslavia split up, the region went through violent and cataclysmic changes. As communism collapsed, ethnic and political tensions led to conflict, with different nationalities fighting over once-shared territories. It was a tumultuous time and one might expect any book set with this as a backdrop to be a long, complicated and dry read. However, Jurica Pavičić, who lived through that era, has written a succinct and understated story of personal and communal trauma which is immensely affecting. The story begins in 1989 on the Dalmatian Coast, now part of Croatia, where a family goes about what appears to be their normal life. Vesna is a school teacher, proud of her vocation and popular with pupils. She has been married to Jakov, a factory worker, for nearly 18 years, and together they have twins, Mate and Silva. Mate is reserved, responsible and courteous, whilst Silva is beautiful and used to getting her way. The family’s veneer of normality is first fractured by Silva’s sudden disappearance, then shattered by revelations about her behaviour that arise from the subsequent police investigation. Gorki Šain leads the investigation. Silva’s boyfriend, Brane, is interviewed, as is the baker’s son, Adrijan, who was seen making out with Silva at a party the night before her disappearance. Neither is arrested, but Adrijan remains a suspect in the eyes of the police and Silva’s family. Gorki uncovers rumours that Silva has been dealing heroin to girls at her school, and indeed, a package containing the drug is discovered hidden at the family home. Now it looks more like Silva has been murdered and the investigation gathers in intensity. However, no significant progress is made and for the police the case gradually moves from an active state to a cold one. The family are left to grieve in their own way. Vesna seems to shrink within herself, angry with her family and the world. Mate and Jakov cannot accept the Silva’s death without proof and carry on searching for her after the police have stopped. Through their diligent efforts, a witness, Elda, is discovered. Elda remembers a girl matching Silva’s description buying a train ticket for travel across the country the day after Silva’s disappearance. With murder seemingly ruled out, they fail to get the police interested again, and Jakov and Mate redouble their efforts to find her, sacrificing much of their personal lives over the next decade. Pavičić writes each individual chapter from a character’s perspective. Mainly this is the family members, but also from other people affected by Silva’s absence, including Gorki, Adrijan, Brane and others too. Told chronologically from 1989 through to 2015, Red Water charts the breakdown of a family, a community and a country, as well as the return to some semblance of normality. By 2015 Gorki has left the police to earn a living preying on the desperate and vulnerable to buy up land on the cheap. He returns by chance to his home town. Pricked by his conscience and wounded professional pride, he makes a final attempt to solve the mystery of Silva’s disappearance. Red Water isn’t a traditional crime novel. Silva’s disappearance is a catalyst for the story being told, but not the focus of the novel.Since its initial publication in 2017, Red Water has won a number of literary prizes and been described as a masterpiece. Frankly, I’m surprised it’s taken this long for an English translation; all credit to the publisher for picking it up. I have a feeling this one will stay with me for a long time."---CrimeFictionLover
"This absorbing prize-winning novel begins in 1989, when a coastal Yugoslav village is shocked to hear that an attractive (if wild) local girl has disappeared. There are two very different explanations: that she has run away from home, or that she has been killed – and there is evidence for both. Whichever is true her family is shattered. Mother withdraws into angry silence, broken only when she urges her husband and son to find her daughter. Because their country is descending into a brutal civil war the police lose interest. We follow the shattered family as they try to cope with their grief. Father and son fly-post surrounding towns in an ever-increasing circle. As months turn into years and against a background of war her father gives up. But his near-catatonic wife urges her son to never give up the search. The war drags on. His search drags on. If the girl is alive why doesn’t she contact them? If she isn’t alive, which of their neighbours killed her? It will be three decades before he learns the shocking truth"---CrimeTime
“Pavičić superimpose a family drama and an outstanding, skilful historical fresco, while never, not even for a second, sacrificing the suspense of a good crime novel... Remarkable book.” Le Figaro
