During a deadly snowstorm, Hannah awakens to carnage, all mangled metal and shattered glass. Evacuated from a secluded boarding school, her coach careered off the road, trapping her with a handful of survivors.
Meg awakens to a gentle rocking. She’s in a cable car stranded high above snowy mountains, with five strangers and no memory of how they got on board.
Carter is gazing out of the window of an isolated ski chalet that he and his companions call home. As their generator begins to waver in the storm, the threat of something lurking in the chalet’s depths looms larger.
Outside, the storm rages. Inside one group, a killer lurks. But which one? And who will make it out alive?
Well, stuff my bottom with garlic butter, dip me in breadcrumbs, pop me in the oven and call me a kiev, that is what I call a book. A bona fide modern day classic, destined to become an all-time best seller, or my name isn’t The Beardy Book Blogger. Actually, that isn’t my name. I mean, what parent in their right mind would ever call a child that? Right? Unless, I suppose, their surname was Blogger, and they called their offspring Beardybook. I guess that’s possible? Maybe they have another child they called Food or Travel?
Um, I’ve lost my thread a tad here….where was I?
Oh yes, bona fide classic, all-time bestseller, and all that…
But wait a cotton picking minute, I’m getting ahead of myself here a little. Also, that garlic butter is, like, really hot so I had better sort that out before going any further…owsies! What a bloody silly idea that was….
Okay, so, The Drift. What. it. is? I’ll tell you what it is, it is the 5th book by the bloody marvellous CJ Tudor, that’s what it is. Now, if you have been unfortunate to have been living in a very, very, very, very, very deep and very, very, very, very, very dark hole in the ground these last 5 or so years, you may not have heard of CJ Tudor and, therefore, you will not be familiar with her books. So let me enlighten you to their titles in the order in which they were released upon the world to spread their literary awesomeness:
Book 1: The Chalk Man
Book 2: The Taking of Annie Thorne
Book 3: The Other People
Book 4: The Burning Girls
Book 5: A Sliver of Darkness (short story collection)
EDIT: I wrote this review immediately after finishing The Drift, but since then CJ has released the equally brilliant and stunning The Gathering. Honestly, a bloody masterpiece! And I mean that literally.
I reviewed the Chalk Man back in the day and that review can be found HERE. You’re bloody welcome.
CJ’s debut, The Chalk Man, was released to much fanfare and hyperbole and it was a book that did not disappoint at all. It was so good you would’ve thought that CJ would have just hung up her writing pencil, put away her Big Box of Words and Letters, and sat back to bathe in her success and, well, feel all smug and stuffs really.
But no!
Not content with writing a sodding great book (go and have a gander at my review. Go on, I know you didn’t click the link back up there when you had the chance. Seriously, people can be so damned lazy these days. Tchuh.), she woke up one day and thought “Dammit, I am going to write another book!”. Thusly did CJ dust off her Big Box of Words and Letters. Luckily for her she hadn’t used them all up during the writing of The Chalk Man, and so she had a damn good rummage and found some other letters which she arranged into different words (okay, some were the same words, obviously, but, to papraphrase the late great Eric Morecambe, she wrote all the same words, but not necessarily in the same order. I’ll give her that), and The Taking of Annie Thorne was born (ooh, that rhymes).
CJ’s Big Box of Words and Letters was not empty yet though, and she continued to plunder that old Tupperware box for all it was worth for two more, bloody remarkable, books (as of typing, I have yet to read her short story collection, so that one doesn’t count. But I bet it’s smashing stuff). Honestly, if you loved The Chalk Man and Annie Thorne, The Other People and The Burning Girls made them look like secondary school essays. CJ’s skills as a writer improve with every book she writes. Which brings us on to The Drift…
But hold yer ‘orses, what exactly is a drift? Well, a quick shufty online throws up the following definitions:
1. A continuous slow movement from one place to another by a current of air or water.
2. To be blown into heaps by the wind (especially of snow or leaves)
3. Something else, a nefarious thing only found in this book.
Okay, we can probably discard number 1. Although there is something drifting up my nose right now, something very unpleasant, but that’s what I get for putting garlic butter up my bottom. It really was a bloody silly idea. But at least my bottom is safe from vampires, so, every cloud and all that.
It’s definition number 2 that fits the bill here. You see, CJ Tudor’s book The Drift is set during a particularly bothersome snowstorm. As you can see from the blurb at the top of this review, snow is a huge factor in this book. Now, for those of you wot live in hotter countries, snow is basically frozen water. Crazy right? Like, it falls from the sky and covers everything. I’m not making this up; it really does. Google it! It’s okay, I’ll wait *drums fingers on keyboard* kjhdfoshdughbhdf ghwfnkdsdf bkjvknnv’osdSMDNBSDVVLA,bcfsdfl.
Oops *stops drumming fingers on keyboard*
See, it’s a real thing. It’s all cold and stingy, but it makes everything look pretty….for about 10 minutes and then it goes all slushy and brown and slippery and then everything goes to shit. In the UK, where me and my beard (and garlicky bottom) live, the whole country practically shuts down as soon as one flake lands on the ground. We just cannot cope with it. Maybe this is why CJ set her book in those United States of America. They can do snow over there, at least in some parts that get snow regularly. They have proper shovels, and machines that move it out of the way and snow boots and stuff. They even have heated gloves and, probably, so don’t quote me on this, heated underpants. Wheras we Brits have plastic cheapo snow shovels that go on sale once a year for a fiver and then snap as soon as a few flakes of snow are shovelled onto them, rusty, outdated snowplows, and we insist on going out into whatever snow we have in our regular mild weather footwear and then complain because our feets get wet and sore. And our underpants remain resolutely unheated. Rubbish.
In The Drift, one thing is the same though, and that is that snow is a bastard. That’s right, I said it; it’s a roight bastard. I’m not scared of you, snow. Ha, do your worst….(but please don’t hurt me, yeah? Cheers. Love you really X). In The Drift, our three groups of beleagered souls not only have to contend with the possibility of a killer, or killers, in their midst, but they have to contend with the snow as well. As they realise that they are trapped with scant chance of rescue, and as the temperatures plummet, and paranoia begins to take hold, their futures look very bleak indeed.
Now, herein lies a problem for me, the reviewer. Whenever I write reviews I try not to include any spoilers. I usually like to keep to the information contained within the blurb. That way I can usually avoid any unwelcome comments from people who feel I may have given too much away. However, this book is not what it appears from the blurb. There is so much more to the premise than simply three groups of strangers trapped in three different locations. Yes it’s that, the blurb don’t lie. It is, on the surface at least, three locked room mysteries that appear unconnected at first, but all neatly dovetail together as the story progresses. CJ’s plotting (and I’m going to assume she is a plotter and not a pantser, but if she is the latter, it’s all the more remarkable) is absolutely brilliant. The way she slowly reveals each new twist, each new strand of the story, each new little tidbit of information about our characters and the world they live in, is sublime.
Honestly, I could go on about this book for hours. It really is that fucking good (yes I swore. Sue me!). To say more really would ruin what can only be described as a journey. It was an honour to spend time with these characters and to immerse myself into their world and lives. It has been said in many jacket quotes and reviews of CJ’s work about the influence that Stephen King has had on her writing. She makes no bones about it, either. She LOVES King and his work and this love is liberally sprinkled throughout her books. I found this especially evident in The Chalk Man and Annie Thorne, but less so in The Other People and The Burning Girls. But here, it is back. If King had written this book it would’ve been about 400 pages longer of course, and, if I’m honest, I could’ve done with a few more pages myself as the world she has created for The Drift is fascinating. But in reality it is just a McGuffin; the thing that drives the story, but without which the story would work just as well. CJ’s characters and skillful writing are what propel this forward. Yes the background story is important in setting up these character’s fate, and for the situations they find themselves in, but even without it it would work. This is a story driven by love, loss, desire and revenge. Ah, revenge, my favourite story motivator. But who, or whom (whoms? Whomevers? Ah, whatever the plural of ‘who’ is, you get the idea) is avenging who, or whom, and why?
This book has more twists and turns than a dropped plate of spaghetti. Each chapter is written from the point of view of one of three main characters: Hannah, Meg and Carter, each trapped in their own personal hell, depsperately trying to survive against seemingly insurmountable odds. CJ is the master of the slowburn reveal. Not that this story is slow, far from it; the pace is perfect and the reveals are wonderfully placed. I figured out the main arc before the end, but there is no ‘Big Twist You Didn’t See Coming’ in this book, thank goodness. When the realisation came to me, and even then I wasn’t 100% sure, I just put the book down and metally applauded CJ for such a great idea. In fact there were many times when I put this book down to absorb and appreciate the information I had just read. In the end, when I finished, I wanted to give this book a standing ovation. Seriously.
Okay, I know I’m gushing like a overflow pipe into the Thames here, but I absolutely adored this book. I really cannot state this enough. Every single thing about it was brilliant. I genuinely cannot think of a single negative to say. The only thing I can think of is that I wish it had been longer. But why? Honestly, CJ told the story she needed to tell in the perfect amount of time and pages. But I just wanted to know more. I can’t say why here, but I’m sure you’ll feel the same way once you’ve finished it too 😉
The Drift is out now in paperback and eBook formats and you can purchase it from your favourite bookseller of choice. And don’t forget your local library too, if you cannot afford to buy a copy 🙂
The Beardy Book Blogger 