It was on page 32 of Tim Johnston’s latest novel Distant Sons when I realized that I recognized his main character, Sean Courtland. It wasn’t his name; it was a passing reference to “the high pines of the Rockies, the summer she was eighteen, a track star floating up the mountain on pink Nikes while he, age fifteen, fell increasingly behind on the bike.” Wait a minute! I know that scenario. I raced for my copy of Descent and sure enough there he was. Cool, I thought. I LOVED Descent and I loved Sean, so I was happy to spend more time with him. Then, a while later, when we are introduced to Dan Young, I had the same niggle in the back of my head. Again, it wasn’t the name, it was the fact that he had a twin brother named Marky. Wait a minute! I ran for my copy of The Current. Yep. Tim Johnston is cannibalizing his previous novels and, oh, what a feast it is.

First of all, you don’t need to know anything about Descent or The Current to understand the plot of Distant Sons. This is not the sort of novel where the reader loses out if they are not familiar with the backstories. That said, I highly recommend both of those novels. Descent, in particular, blew me away and made Johnston an auto buy author for me. Nevertheless, you will not suffer for not having read these books before reading this one because Distant Sons isn’t really a sequel.

It’s ten years past the events of Descent (not totally sure what that means for the timeline of The Current.) Sean Courtland, now 26, has landed in small town Wisconsin and isn’t able to go much farther because his car has broken down. He finds a job doing some carpentry work for Marion Deveraux, an elderly reclusive oddball. The townspeople have long been suspicious of Devereaux because of three boys who’d gone missing thirty-odd years ago.

Not long after he arrives in town, he finds himself in trouble with the local police for getting into a bar fight, where he was defending the honour of local waitress Denise Givens against jack off Blaine Mattis. Then, he crosses paths with Dan Young, who has also run into some of his own bad luck with a vehicle. Sean offers him some work because, as luck would have it, Dan has plumbing experience and the job at Devereaux’s needs plumbing work done.

These are the main characters in Johnston’s story. Their intertwining lives, the stuff of chance, has a profound impact on each of them. As much as I loved Sean when I first met him, I love him just as much – or more – in this book. I feel as though he has been punishing himself for a decade and I wanted him to be able to let the past go and find something good to hold on to. His new relationships with Dan, Denise and Denise’s father are thoughtful and it is refreshing to see male relationships in particular that are not merely posturing. Sean’s interactions with other people errs on the side of kindness always. Although Dan and Sean are reluctant to reveal too much about themselves, I felt as though I was watching an authentic relationship unfold.

There is a mystery at the core of this novel, and Johnston certainly has a few surprises in store for the reader, but this is a novel about people – some of whom who are just trying to do the right thing. Slow burn, for sure, but 100% worth the effort. I gasped. I teared up. I loved every second of this book.

If you haven’t ever read this author, I beg you to give him a try. He’s fantastic.