End of the Ocean

April 15, 2019
In the wake of a painful divorce, Sage, the hero of this diverting, if often sordid, tale of drug smuggling from McBride (A Swollen Red Sun), travels to the Indonesian island of Bali “to find himself—or to lose himself.” Instead, he finds Wayne Tender, a crude Australian with apparent connections to the drug trade, and Ratri, a beautiful local woman with whom he falls in love. While it’s Wayne—with the help of various other seedy folks—who provides the opportunity for Sage to get sucked into the world of drug smuggling, it’s his attraction to Ratri (and his desire to figure out a way for them to have a life together) that makes the opportunity tempting. McBride does a nice job slowly developing his characters and their milieu, avoiding at least some of the more egregious clichés of the genre. He’s not perfectly successful, but there’s enough nuance to the story to render the flaws forgivable and keep the tension high. Agent: Stacia Decker, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner.