Published 19th January 2023 by Penguin Michael Joseph.
From the cover of the book:
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? . . .
***********
In a dystopian near future, ravaged by an infection that has brought the world to its knees, three groups of people are battling for survival...
Hannah wakes up in the wreckage of a coach that was taking a group of elite students to a refuge in the mountains, after the infection found its way to the Academy. Trapped in a snow drift, the survivors are caught between the need to escape from a death trap, and the almost non-existent chance of making it through the blizzard that rages outside.
Meg awakens to find herself trapped in a freezing cable car, stranded high in the mountains. Her companions are complete strangers and no one remembers how they got here, although they all claim to be brought together for a single purpose. Can they find a way to make it to safety?
Carter and his companions call a remote chalet in the mountains their home. A storm is raging outside, and their generator is failing. Their options are limited, but they must find a way to contain the danger in the basement that will unleash itself if the power goes out.
To make matters worse, a killer lurks within each group. Will any of them survive?
This one of those books that I was in high anticipation of as soon it was announced - and all those months of waiting have not been in vain, dear readers!
In The Drift C.J. Tudor turns her deliciously twisted imagination in a direction that beautifully combines the darkness of her thriller novels with the near-future dystopian nightmares that she visits in her short stories. It is a combination that I am very much in favour of, made all the more delectable by the fact that Tudor makes the utmost best of the isolating atmosphere of a snowy landscape - one of my favourite things to read about.
Beginning with a prologue that told me I was in for something horrifically special, the story flips back and forth between the three murderous scenarios. You gradually get to know the characters in each group, as they try to navigate the odds that are stacked against them - for as long as they survive, that is. The body count is high, and it is impossible to guess who is responsible for knocking off their fellow survivors in each group, until almost the end of the story, when the separate threads collide in the most brilliantly contrived way... but no spoilers here.
This is Tudor at the absolute top of her bloody game, with a story that has everything you need from a genuinely terrifying horror novel, and all the claustrophobic menace of her previous books. She uses the inhospitable conditions of the environment to perfection, and maxes out the danger quota by bringing in stumbling blocks of the human (and inhuman) kind too. The way she misdirects you is a work of genius, and although three stories to follow might seem a little overwhelming, they fit together with accomplished flair to make a whole that is cleverly threaded with echoing themes of loss, betrayal, and family.
I swallowed this whole, unable to look away for a second, and now I am bereft that I must wait for new book from Tudor's wicked imagination.
The Drift is available to buy now in hardcover, ebook and audio formats.
Thank you to Michael Joseph for sending me a proof of this book in return for an honest review. I also bought a hardback copy of this book.
About the author:
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.
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