The Current: A Novel

Absolutely spellbinding…or confusingly longwinded. Views will vary on this book. If you like Agatha Christie style, clues-and-sleuths mysteries or action-packed thrillers, The Current is not for you. But if you enjoy stories with real atmosphere, complex relationships, and a powerful dose of tension, all captured in some of the most expressive prose you are ever likely to read, then this book is a must for you.

The plot is simple. Two college girlfriends are stranded on a snowy river bank when their car is rammed from behind. In they go, under the ice, caught in the dark swirl of a fast-flowing current. One lives, one dies. Ten years earlier, the waters had claimed another girl. Are the events connected? This rather thin storyline is wrapped in a wealth of words, one sentence managing to run for twenty-four lines! But don’t be put off. The prose, wordy and sometimes convoluted though it is, succeeds brilliantly in evoking for the reader a father’s pain at the loss of his daughter, the pressures on a young man suspected of murder, a sheriff’s ten years worth of guilt for failing to get his man, and the anguish of being the sole survivor of a two-person tragedy. While the author wrests more than enough mystery out of the The Current’s slim plot to satisfy most mystery fans, it is the telling that makes this an exceptional read.