The Pool

Nine years ago, five well-off young families gathered for a summer barbecue by a backyard pool in suburban Melbourne. By the end of the day, something unspeakable had happened — and in its wake, marriages fractured, friendships dissolved, and none of the families were ever the same.

Now the friends are in their forties, their children grown into teenagers, and a reunion brings them uneasily back together. But the charismatic, endlessly slippery Baz King — a spin doctor with a long trail of dodgy dealings — has gone missing. With no shortage of grudges and motives, almost anyone could be responsible: his ex-wife Birdie, his colleague Alex, his lover Jess and her husband Richard, or his younger new wife, Madison.

Told through shifting perspectives and moving between that catastrophic afternoon and the present-day search, The Pool is a biting Australian domestic noir. Beneath the whodunit runs a sharper question: if you witness the worst thing imaginable, how does it reshape the rest of your life — and could it turn you into a killer?