Ten went into the woods. Only five returned.“You ever consider maybe the wrong people never made it out of those woods?” — Sean
When what should have been a cliché corporate wilderness retreat goes horribly wrong, the survivors emerge with terrible secrets, ones they don’t know whether it’s safer to keep or tell. That’s the ominous stage set in There and Back, the latest from Shamus and Anthony Award nominated author Eric Beetner.
Every year, Synergen Dynamics sends a handpicked group of junior executives on a five-day wilderness retreat. Though billed as a team-building exercise, it’s an open secret the outing is also used by top brass as the final selection process for who gets promoted based on how well they perform. The eight Synergen employees selected for this year’s retreat are driven six and a half hours out into the middle of nowhere, where they are dropped off and left with their two guides.
It gives nothing away to reveal that early on the first day things go tragically wrong, and instead of returning to civilization after five days with campfire stories to tell, the team is not heard from again for over three weeks. How things unfolded during that time is worked into current events through a series of “Out There” flashbacks weaved in among how the survivors are managing “Back Home.”
No one who makes it back emerges unscathed. Forever changed by what happened out in the wilderness, the survivors find the dynamics of every aspect of their lives altered—how they interact with their families, how they view their jobs and previously coveted promotion, how they view the very state of humanity. Adding to their struggle to return to whatever will now be considered “normal” for them, they are hounded by the press for interviews, have book deals dangled in front of them, and are recognized in public and treated like celebrities. All the while, police are slowly reconstructing what occurred, and their continued scrutiny adds to the already crippling pressure the survivors feel to keep their dark secrets hidden away.
Eric Beetner is one of the most prolific authors currently working in crime fiction, having published an impressive array of novels, novellas, and short stories. And though his plots are usually as frenetic as the pace of his productivity, Beetner never skimps on character. Indeed, Beetner has a rare talent for combining fast-paced, cinematic-style action with characters you both believe and genuinely invest in—whether that’s to love or loathe them varies.
In There and Back, Beetner uses his considerable talent to not only explore the moral and philosophical question of what people will do to survive an extreme situation, but takes that one step further to examine how the choices made impact those who manage to survive…and whether they think the choices they made were worth it.
Reading There and Back is a choice I highly recommend you make. The book is available in both ebook and paperback from Rough Edges Pres.
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