#BookReview: THE DRIFT by C. J. Tudor @cjtudor @MichaelJBooks

Publication: 19th January 2023 – Michael Joseph

Survival can be murder…

Hannah awakens to carnage, all mangled metal and shattered glass. Evacuated from a secluded boarding school during a snowstorm, 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 each group, a killer lurks.

But who?

And will anyone make it out alive?…

AMAZON

WATERSTONES

If you are looking for a novel full of twists and suspense that will keep you on the edge of your seat from the first to the last page then I can’t recommend The Drift enough! It was a wild ride of a read and it confirmed, once again, that C. J. Tudor never disappoints.

The Drift is set in an apocalyptic near future in which a virus is killing people and the few survivors, the Whistlers, some kind of zombies easily recognized by the whistling sound they make through their lungs, are used as Guinea pigs to use their blood to find a cure.

The story is told from three different perspectives. First there is Hannah. Her father is one of the genius scientists the world is counting on to find a cure to the virus and she is a medical student traveling to the Retreat, the lab researching for a cure. The bus crashes and Hannah and her fellow students are trapped inside, some of them dead. Was the crash an accident or were they sabotaged? And why?

Then there is Meg. She is a former police officer traveling on a cable car towards the Retreat where she is volunteering for tests. The cable car stops in the middle of nowhere and one of the passengers is found murdered. Will they survive both the killer and the cold?

And finally, there is Carter. He works at the Retreat and, returning from a trip to the grocery shop, he finds the electricity out and two of his companions murdered. Can he trust his other companions? There is something dangerous locked in the basement. Has it found a way to get free?

These three characters have a lot in common besides being trapped in an enclosed space with a killer and a few dead bodies. They have suffered and experienced grief, they are keeping secrets, and they are all trying to survive in a world that is slowly dying. But what is the connection between them? Even as I started to suspect it, I didn’t see all the brilliant twists that keep coming until the end.

I loved all C. J. Tudor’s novels, but I think that The Drift may be my favourite. It is claustrophobic, with a constant sense of isolation and near end of the world. It is dark, chilling, at times gruesome, and gripping and I couldn’t put it down!

A huge thank you to Michael Joseph and NetGalley for providing me with a proof of the novel.

C. J. Tudor’s love of writing, especially the dark and macabre, started young. When her peers were reading Judy Blume, she was devouring Stephen King and James Herbert.

Over the years she has had a variety of jobs, including trainee reporter, radio scriptwriter, dog walker, voiceover artist, television presenter, copywriter and, now, author.

C. J. Tudor’s first novel, The Chalk Man, was a Sunday Times bestseller and sold in over forty countries. Her second novel, The Taking of Annie Thorne, was also a Sunday Times bestseller as was her third novel, The Other People. All three books are in development for TV. Her fourth novel, The Burning Girls, was a Richard and Judy Book Club selection and has been adapted for television by award-winning screenwriter Hans Rosenfeldt (creator of The Bridge and Marcella). It will debut on Paramount Plus in 2023. The Drift is her fifth novel and has also been optioned for the screen. C.J. Tudor is also the author of A Sliver of Darkness, a collection of short stories.
She lives in Sussex with her family.

Twitter @CJTudor
Facebook @CJTudorOfficial