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People I loved were dead, and now people I cared about were sick. Maybe the whole town was. Maybe the whole world was.
My in-laws run are running an organic dairy farm. It's a crazy and unappreciated lifestyle outside of your workplace. Running a business while doing the manual labour is a 40 to 100 hours a week contract and it's for the rest of your life. It's more a vocation than a deal. That's without having to worry about GMOs and greedy corporations looking to take a stranglehold on the food market. DRIFT is a thriller with a theoretical point to make: GMOs are the Far West of genetics. That kind of novel usually lets its didactic side take over the entertainment value of the project, but Jon McGoran seemed conscious about that issue and did not let it happen in DRIFT. It's a lean and clever thriller about farming and greed.
Doyle Carrick is on suspension from the Philadelphia Police Department for botching a stakeout and socking a colleague in the face without proper cause. He decides to serve his suspension in his late mother's home in Dunston, Pennsylvania. Doyle has difficulty managing the culture clash, yet falls for his new neighbour Nola Watkins, an organic farmer. Nola has problems with her crops, that seems to have been contaminated with an unknown agent. That's only the first problem that falls on workaholic Doyle's desk, though. Soon enough, a neighborhood kid dies from unknown causes and his parents' employee Moose has an unexpected overdose. The local chief of police, a man named Pruitt, doesn't seem to give a damn. Nothing is peaceful and quiet anymore in the normally peaceful and quiet town of Dunston.
DRIFT is a novel that never loses sight of what it meant to talk about: GMOs. Having a pseudo-scientific * thesis means there are choices to make. The concept is going to wolf down a considerable amount of space in your novel, so you have to focus your narrative efforts. Jon McGoran went for plot over characters. Doyle Carrick is a wisecracking antihero archetype and Nola Watkins is your typical noble, pure-hearted love interest. The most unpredictable character in DRIFT is police chief Pruitt, who I could never really gauge. Jon McGoran's protagonists are not exactly an emotional cornerstone of his novel, but they are not placeholders either. Their dialogue lines are efficient and I enjoyed the two lovebirds the same way I enjoy Horatio Caine and Ms. Boa Vista in a CSI: Miami episode. They did not offer any surprise, but they delivered what I expected of them.
Spetzer shrank away from him, looking away to the side. ''I know Charlie, and I'm sorry. Maybe they knew you wouldn't go along. But I mean it, man, these guys were scary.''
''You don't think I'm scrary?''
Spetzer laught at that, then winced, like he was expecting a smack. ''Charlie, you can kick my ass or ruin my business, whatever, but no, you ain't scary like these guys was.''
What made DRIFT such an enjoyable experience was its fine understanding of plotting subleties. I haven't been that suspicious/paranoid reading a novel in a long time. Every character seems to blatantly lie to one another even if they aren't. Jon McGoran creates several narrative thread in DRIFT that have his protagonist Doyle Carrick all over the place. DRIFT stands out in that regards, because every narrative variable matters in creating a memorable ending. Such a plot-driven novel DEMANDS a strong ending and unlike many, DRIFT actually delivers. I feel like a rookie reviewer saying this, but it's a novel that kept me on the edge of my seat. It might not have been a transformative emotional experience, but it's rare to get such a visceral response out of me purely based on the mystery aspect of a novel.
Obviously, I'm sensitive to farming issues. Not many people understand this, but food is so easy to come back based on the hard-working, good-natured values of farmers around the world. If we start messing with the growth and production of food, we will become prey to greedy, faceless entities. There is something sacred about farming. Jon McGoran succeeded in creating an entertaining product that discusses these issues without ever leaving the reader and his enjoyment behind. You don't need to be into farming issues to read and appreciate DRIFT, just like you don't need to be into DNA science to enjoy JURASSIC PARK. A good novel is a good novel, no matter what the subject is and that's exactly what DRIFT is.
* I don't mean that in a derogatory fashion, DRIFT is about a scientific issue, but not directly about the science.
