The Current: A Novel

A Family of Strangers Connected by Tragedy Tim Johnston, author of the national bestseller Descent, termed “astonishing” by the Washington Post and “unforgettable” by the Miami Herald, returns with another stunning novel about crime and its indelible impact on the lives of innocent people. In The Current there are two murders, ten years apart, both teenage girls, both drowned in the same river, an icy channel that feeds into the Mississippi. The most recent murder involved an attack on two young women, one of whom escaped with her life, and this fresh killing revives still festering anger over the fact that the earlier murder was never solved. The girl who survived the second murder attempt, the daughter of the small Minnesota town’s former sheriff, feels there must be a connection between the two crimes, and so she launches her own investigation, one that unearths long hidden secrets and provides an outlet for the anger that has simmered just below the surface of the townspeople’s everyday lives. Brilliantly plotted, unrelentingly suspenseful, and beautifully realized, The Current is a gripping page-turner of a novel about how the past holds the key to the future as well as an unbreakable grip on the present. Tim Johnston is the author of one previous adult novel, the bestselling 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. He lives in Iowa.