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3.5 

The Current

By Tim Johnston
The Current by Tim Johnston digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

"A first-rate thriller . . . Past and present merge in The Current, Tim Johnston's atmospheric, exquisitely suspenseful novel of two murders separated by ten years." 
The Washington Post

“Gripping . . . Johnston’s masterful novel is worth lingering over—it soars above the constraints of a traditional thriller and pulls you deep into the secrets of a grief-stricken town.”
People

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.

​Don't miss DISTANT SONS, the new literary thriller from Tim Johnston, available now.

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 scenehalf 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.

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338 Reviews

3.5
“⭐️⭐️⭐️ Trudging along I would have thought this would either turn into a DNF … or a 1 ⭐️ … and really, it’s not a GREAT read. However, the ending turned it around and I really didn’t see that one coming - and it should have been obvious. The story was incredibly long winded, phrases that seemed too philosophical for this type of thriller. The characters were dull and very one dimensional… but the actual story … well, it got a star. 2 girls, 1 dead, 1 alive… accident or on purpose… it takes about 300 pages to care 🤪”

About Tim Johnston

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.

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