What would you do if all the water that wasn't bottled suddenly disappeared? In this tense debut thriller, Benjamin Warner, creative writing instructor at Towson University in Maryland, takes this premise and spins a fast-paced story about Eddie Chapman and his wife, Laura. After being stuck in a traffic jam for hours on his way home from work, Eddie can no longer wait for the police and ambulances to arrive. Having run track in college, Eddie thinks he has the stamina to run the eight or nine miles to his house, so he abandons his car and sets off. He encounters clusters of people along the way, on the highway and then on the town's streets. They are all experiencing the same problems: no cell service, no electricity and no responses from any of the powers that be--police, ambulances, the power company or the water company. Worse yet, there's no water in anyone's taps. Even the stream bed near Eddie's home is empty. The trees and bushes along the banks have turned to powdery ash, as if a great fire had ripped through the area, instantly incinerating everything in its path.
Warner gives us a beautiful portrayal of a couple desperate for water, or anything that might quench their thirst, as they fade in and out of consciousness due to dehydration. He does a stellar job of depicting the chaos that would ensue if water suddenly disappeared, with no explanations as to how or why it vanished or when it might return. Make sure a tall glass of something cold is nearby when before enjoying Thirst. --Lee E. Cart, freelance writer and book reviewer