Debut novelist Jeffrey Higgins has written a thriller that makes The Shining look as subdued as a cricket match.
The story opens six months after the crib-death of Dagny and Brad’s three-month old infant child. Their live go downhill from there.
As a prophylaxis to curtail Dagny’s depression, Brad takes it upon himself to rent a sixty-two-foot sailing yacht to ply the waters from Indonesia to the Maldives, off the coast of India. He’s had sailing experience on the Atlantic and convinced that the challenge of sailing exotic waters will extricate Dagny from her emotional and career-impairing funk. (They’re both doctors.) Besides, the yacht is appointed with all the modern electronics and practically sails itself…or so Brad says. She is hesitant, consults with friends, but in the end, accedes to the month-long trip, believing it may work as planned.
Higgins does a masterful job meting out the ever-increasing volume and severity of perils—at first to the couple, then to Dagny—occurring while on the trip. During the voyage, the story takes on a locked room vibe when mysteries arise as to the baby’s death, Brad’s physical condition, an ominous Great White shark stalking the boat, whether Brad has been faithful, whether the boat is dependable, whether the weather will hold out…whew! The issues remain mysteries and not resolved until the last quarter of the book. This is the sort of book doctors counsel insomniacs not to read at bedtime.
The first-person point of view, Dagny’s, allows for more depth of character than typically found in thrillers—in which thrills are the objective and characters merely cyphers to put at risk. Dagny is fully realized—both insecure and strong, troubled but competent, uncertain yet confident. And she’s frightened, Jesus, she’s frightened! The author doesn’t pander to the zeitgeist by making Dagny a super-woman; instead, she’s wholly human and imperfect, adding to her vulnerability to life-endangering risk.
While the story is delightfully and rigorously bang-bang, there were a few things about the writing—mostly stylistic preferences of my own—I’d like to have been different.
Some may consider this a nit, but Higgins never met a contraction he liked. Doesn’t is does not; won’t is will not; can’t is cannot, etc. I found it slightly distracting in the first half of the book. It rendered some of the speech formal-sounding and stiff, not the way everyday Americans speak, even doctors. The uncontracted versions of those parts of speech are appropriate in certain contexts, but in Furious they’re deployed throughout.
There were also a few instances of telling vs. showing. But in fairness, the vehicle of the story, i.e., a yacht at sea, is not as simple a story to unfold as would be an everyday town or neighborhood under siege by malevolent forces. Nor did these instances unduly impede the action.
Also, Higgins is either a brilliant researcher or has significant sailing experience or both. The descriptions of sailing principles, equipment, and challenges inform much of the drama. And though the author, via his Brad character, explains the layout of the yacht and how its equipment is operated, the jargon as well as the nomenclature of the boat’s different sections went over my head, especially as the pace of the action accelerated. However, it doesn’t impede the propulsive sense of threat the characters are under. In other words, it’s the threat that counts, not whether it occurs at the bow or the stern or starboard or port.
“Furious” is a gripping, exciting, page-turner. The plot is well-executed and the characters sharply drawn. The protagonist, Dagny Steele, is thankfully given an inner landscape beyond the usual tropes for female characters in thrillers. You will care for her, fear for her, and urge her on.
I give the book four-and-a-half stars out of five. When I publish this review, you may see five stars for the simple reason some sites don’t accommodate half-star rating.
I anticipate the reading public will anxiously await the next from Jeffrey James Higgins. For certain, I will.
But first, feast on Furious: Sailing into Terror.
I may also suggest you not read this in bed at night.
Lanny Larcinese
11/01/21