Book Review: “The Only One Who Knows” by Lisa M. Matlin
Pub Date: 03-Mar-2026
Publisher: Ballantine | Bantam
ISBN 9780593599983
Price: $30.00 (USD)
Pages: 272
Publisher’s Summary:
A disgraced TV news reporter returns to her violent hometown to investigate a series of deadly shark attacks in this nail-biting suspense novel from the author of The Stranger Upstairs.
“A gothic coastal noir about generational violence and the cyclical nature of predation, The Only One Who Knows is visceral, haunting, and impossible to look away from.”—Carter Wilson, USA Today bestselling author of Tell Me What You Did
Something is lurking below the surface . . . and it’s hungry.
With her polished persona as a morning show co-host, Minnow Greenwood seems to have it all. But behind the camera, something’s about to break. When a public meltdown shatters her facade, Minnow flees back to Kangaroo Bay—a grimy fishing town on Australia’s southern coast, where locals vanish and something deadly hunts in the water.
On her first night back, a horrifying shark attack rocks the town, adding another body to the unsettling list of deaths and disappearances. Then a former colleague arrives to investigate, so she reluctantly teams up with him to find answers for herself and keep her own dark secrets buried.
But with danger closing in, Minnow must unearth her town’s deadly past—and face the darkness festering inside her—before she becomes the next to disappear.
Amber’s Review:
Random House reached out to me with a copy of this book’s access page at NetGalley. Great pairing that they found me based on past reviews! I have a lot to share for this book.
Trigger Warnings: domestic abuse (intimate partner violence), sadism, animal harm, blood, a lot of violence (man vs man, man vs nature/animals, man vs woman, girl vs girl), childhood adverse events. The dog does not die.
Author LISA M. MATLIN shows how well she understands mental health, specifically domestic violence and clan-like systems of perpetual abuse. In THE ONLY ONE WHO KNOWS, main character Minnow Greenwood (also known as Melanie Holmes) is not an unreliable narrator as literary critics would define it; but, she is complex and has her own history of committing violent acts, recurring horrific memories, and stuck in her body’s stress response of the nervous system. Minnow and her brother, Heath, are the closest things to heroes presented and that label barely has any glue to keep it on them.
The villains are easy to identify: they are pretty much everyone else in the book except for two people. Terry Hargrave, the bar owner. Minnow and Heath’s missing father, Peter Greenwood. Minnow’s old boyfriend from their teens, Trav Holloway. Heath’s former best friend, Luke Newton. Plus, literally everyone else in town except for the two noted next. This town, Kangaroo Bay on the East Coast of Victoria in Australia, is an isolated hellscape of a fishing town.
If there are two characters who come through as the heart of The Only One Who Knows, they are Chris Cooper (a successful journalist) and Colleen Holloway (a resident who keeps to herself and cleans the beaches). They provide opposing therapeutic dialog for Minnow. Chris is just getting to know her and is able to make Minnow laugh which she hasn’t done in years. Colleen knows all about her and her family’s history except for the mysteries of where Minnow’s mother and father are, who everyone presumes are dead. Colleen gets to fill a matronly role that Minnow desperately needs ever since her mother’s disappearance when she was in her formative adolescence.
Sharks are a tool in The Only One Who Knows. They’re a weapon. They’re nature’s antagonists against the humans who go in the water. Though the sharks are part of the story, they are to be respectfully feared for what they are. This isn’t sci-fi where the sharks have been through experiments to become super intelligent. These sharks feel authentic as apex predators around Australia. Beaches in this fictionalized Kangaroo Bay only stay closed for an hour after a shark sighting. The rule is frequently ignored by adrenaline-seekers and tourists.
The women, girls, and kangaroos (truly any animal) are all victims of the male residents of Kangaroo Bay. Matlin created a town where tourists come in to spend money on fishing, but they aren’t welcome and they aren’t treated well. The locals don’t want them sticking around. The girls learn from a young age that if you can’t be hardcore, loveless, filled with rage, and commit acts of violence like the boys, you better leave or you’ll be yet another generational victim. It’s known that women don’t stick around. They up and leave their children because if they try to survive, they have to run and leave everything behind.
Matlin’s little world is dark. The fishing takes place at night. The water at these beaches doesn’t have the clear visibility as the upper class beaches. The shark fins that are barely seen come up as black silhouetted arrows pointing with purpose. The Wicked Woods are also dark and silent. Matlin fills each scene there with heart-stopping tension. In this town, children drop out of school. They’re feral little monsters mimicking their fathers. The violence starts at a young age.
Minnow’s conversations with people she questions in her pursuit to find out what connected the shark attack victims does an excellent job of drawing out important information. The dialog toys with readers to keep them pulled into this sick world.
Matlin knows her stuff about the cycles of abuse and the various ways people change after trauma. Minnow’s thoughts often refer to her own fight, flight, and freeze (there are more, but these are the ones she knows) response as being stuck in freeze. She hates herself for always being frozen, unable to move, petrified in the face of fear. Heath, on the other hand, wears a docile mask and genuinely wants to be a good father if given the chance. Others repeat the rage in order to make their fathers proud, to be the strongest, unbeatable, winner of the biggest catch.
There are a couple of gaps that could use clarification. How much does Colleen Holloway really know about one of the murders? Why was one name left off the list as Minnow recalled all the victims? None of this breaks the plot. These are small things.
Summary:
If you are ready for a suspenseful crime thriller, The Only One Who Knows by Lisa M. Matlin is as close to perfection as an author can get. Matlin’s fictional world could be studied by psychology students. Her prose delivers the vibes of death metal lyrics as paragraphs and chapters of raw emotions.
Rating: 5 stars
Analysis of Pacing and Plot:
The Only Who Knows opens with a flashback. There are specific chapters of flashbacks from Minnow and her father though it seems like it’s more from what her father had told her and not his POV since he’s absent. There are chapters titled, “Then” interspersed with the present day narrative by Minnow. However, in her present day mind, she is constantly haunted by memories.
Matlin presented clean timelines through short newspaper reports. Readers can note when people have been missing or attacked by sharks.
The first body shows up at 14% ending chapter four with a moment that makes it nigh impossible to stop reading there.
18%, Minnow considers bringing someone else in on the secret violence of Kangaroo Bay.
25%, readers learn more about Minnow’s emotional baggage, her guilt and her shame. This is when readers learn there are many secrets in what was dubbed “the Wicked Woods.”
33% evidence is discovered that starts the unraveling of secrets. Not long after, a character who has been Minnow’s comfort feels the shock of the violence and the truth for the first time.
43% Minnow finds her first connection between two victims.
49% a new secret and mystery to Minnow is presented.
53% a huge part of Minnow’s past violence is revealed at the midpoint; not her biggest secret (saved for last) but vital to understanding who she is. The fire is detailed not long after it was revealed to have happened.
55% another sign of psychopathy, arson, is presented for the first time; Minnow also stops trying to dance around her role in harming someone and admits to one of the things she’s done.
58% a reveal that in the past, one of the “blood boys” faced some consequences.
62% a reveal about one of the victims and why they were where they shouldn’t have been; critical evidence is shared.
64% a hint that someone else might be missing; Minnow contemplates her life and knows she has two paths before her (carrying on her mother’s goodness or carrying on her father’s evil) and she does make that choice at the end; Minnow is indirectly threatened a villain.
69% another shark attack.
72% one of Minnow’s confidants appears to know more than they’re letting on.
74% Minnow’s idolization of someone she trusted shatters. This leads into the climatic end of the second act (if analyzed as a three-act structure).
79% more proof about how sharks fit into the plot.
82% Minnow shows signs of forgiveness or it could be acceptance without growth. She is presented with a huge life-altering choice to make. This goes into her narrative about whether to follow the goodness of her mother or the evil and greed of her father.
83% Minnow has a realization about one of the clues and knows who was responsible for two women’s deaths; readers can piece it together by this clue or wait for the explicit reveal a few pages later after another flashback chapter. More guilt, shame, and trauma boil up.
88% Minnow has another decision to make and she’s grown to be more aware of her body and her responses to conflict. This is “the big showdown” between hero and villain and innocent person in the way.
91% though the physical fight with the villain is over, there are still decisions and actions for Minnow to choose. The family secrets pour out (mostly) which gives Heath a new perspective on life since Minnow has known these things since she was around ten-years-old.
96% in a flashback, young Minnow’s most important life decision is made and readers finally get to know the last of Kangaroo Bay’s secrets.
The conclusion pulls together all the valuable life lessons that Minnow’s father drilled into her. Things that Matlin repeats cyclically in order to drill them into readers’ minds too. There’s breath-giving irony in what Minnow was hiding.
97% Minnow gets her big journalism break by sharing her story and writing up the gruesome history of Kangaroo Bay’s residents. There is a sense of happily ever after which allows readers to finally inhale after holding their breath through 270 pages.
Don’t skip the acknowledgments. There’s something rather sweet at the end. Although, we don’t really know the question, only the answer. The author manages to leave a real life mystery for everyone except one special reader.
Founder and Editor-in-Chief of AmberUnmasked.com and Vodka O'Clock Podcast. Author of The Farrah Wethers Mysteries, comic book short stories, prose, and non-fiction. Cosplayer and figure model.