The Current: A Novel - Hardcover

Johnston, Tim

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1616206772 ISBN 13: 9781616206772

Publisher: Algonquin Books, 2019

Synopsis

Tim Johnston, whose breakout debut Descent was called “astonishing,” “dazzling,” and “unforgettable” by critics, returns with The Current, a tour de force about the indelible impact of a crime on the lives of innocent people.
In the dead of winter, outside a small Minnesota town, state troopers pull two young women and their car from the icy Black Root River. One is found downriver, drowned, while the other is found at the scene—half frozen but alive.

What happened was no accident, and news of the crime awakens the community’s memories of another young woman who lost her life in the same river ten years earlier, and whose killer may still live among them.

Determined to find answers, the surviving young woman soon realizes that she’s connected to the earlier unsolved case by more than just a river, and the deeper she plunges into her own investigation, the closer she comes to dangerous truths, and to the violence that simmers just below the surface of her hometown.

Grief, suspicion, the innocent and the guilty—all stir to life in this cold northern town where a young woman can come home, but still not be safe. Brilliantly plotted and unrelentingly propulsive, The Current is a beautifully realized story about the fragility of life, the power of the past, and the need, always, to fight back.

About this title

Review

An Amazon Best Book of January 2019: Tim Johnston’s Descent, a complex missing-person thriller set in the shadowy wilderness of the Rocky Mountains, was one of 2015’s most pleasant surprises. His follow-up, The Current, is equally, if not more, impressive: Two young women are pulled from the frigid winter waters of a Minnesota river, one dead and the other barely alive. The incident—which is no accident—recalls a similar tragedy 10 years earlier, and the survivor soon realizes their stories have deeper connections than just the river. Small towns with secrets is well traveled territory, but Johnston rises above any tropes through his fully realized characters, each filled with currents of grief, regret, and especially love. And as methodical as Johnston is at unwrapping his carefully plotted story, readers will churn through The Current's 400 pages—a paradox that only the most accomplished mystery writers ever achieve. The only complaint is that we might have to wait another three years for his next one. —Jon Foro, Amazon Book Review

From the Author

Tim Johnston, a native of Iowa City, is the author of the New York Times bestseller Descent, as well as a young adult novel, Never So Green, and the story collection Irish Girl, winner of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction.

About this edition

• Publisher: Algonquin Books
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1616206772
• ISBN 13: 9781616206772
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 416