Garth Hallberg, The Eleventh Grieve (The Reason for Everything Press 2023)
‘There are no oysters, sir,’ the waiter informs him, but what Jake Krimmer wants to know is, ‘Since when?’ He makes his living off meteorological disasters—droughts, tidal waves and forest fires. He collects ‘congestion revenue’ in cases of bottlenecks in the power grid; he has purchased the Financial Transmission Rights (FTRs).
The girl with indigo eyes he met at a cocktail party, Rita ‘Ten Grieve’, calls it ‘climate change’, but he prefers to call it ‘weird weather’. His mother calls it ‘making a living off of other people’s misery’.
His right-hand-gal is ex-girlfriend, meteorologist Sam. Sam predicts a big twister coming to Norman, Oklahoma, and Krimmer hopes to make a killing on FTRs.
Rita Ten Grieve comes to him, calling him her ‘client’. Her job—to change his mind about climate change. She challenges him to a game. She has ten chances to explain to him why she ‘grieves for the future’ and ten chances to convince him to grieve. He plays along, hoping for ‘naughty bedtime games’. Rita gets her data from the Nimbus, some Cloud-type technology which she uses to reveal to him his father’s betrayal of the ‘denial’ cause, the first grieve. She uses virtual reality, taking him back to moments in his life on a spiritual journey like Scrooge’s Ghosts of Christmas visions. What she delivers is ‘the terror of the ordinary’.
Krimmer has regrets about having ended it with Sam, and she is being wooed by his business partner Mortenson. Sam is having regrets about how they earn their bread, and Krimmer begins to unravel, his social conscience finally pricked. This is also a story of redemption—of ’contrition, capitulation and conversion’, as each grieve further opens his eyes to his responsibility for the future of the earth.
This great techno-thriller features rich vocabulary and phrasing with beautiful, complex descriptions of scenery and weather, and the characters are lively, though I found the motivations of Krimmer’s dad confusing. The transformation of Krimmer happened a little quickly. I rather wanted him to have some major crisis or go into a dark night of the soul, before re-examining his life and livelihood.
I love techno-thrillers both for the excitement and for the education. You always learn in detail about some particular field. Here, we learn about the ins and outs of the financial exploitation of the climate change crisis. About meteorology, extreme weather tornado-chasing and the FTR market. An addendum reviews the history and science behind climate change.
This review first appeared in Reedsy Discovery.
Susie Helme 
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