ZONE TRIP

Three friends become entangled in legal and psychological drama in Turner’s novel.

In the near future, San Francisco store owner Evan pulls a viral, death-defying stunt with his friends Leo and Lydia, and the high they feel from it leaves them craving more (“We need to do another stunt like last night’s. Or something to top it”). They create a club, Chaos Order, and recruit new members; this leads to more stunts. Leo is the ringleader, and while Lydia and Evan both feel he takes too many risks, they go along with him. After one dangerous stunt, they get arrested. Evan and Leo disagree on how to handle the legal fallout, and Leo lashes out at Evan, tossing him out of the Order. Evan gets a job working for a gaming corporation called HERE, ironically the owner of the billboard the Chaos Order destroyed as part of their last prank. He feels ethically conflicted about working for HERE, like he’s betraying the Order, but taking the job is his way out of legal trouble. He tries to recruit Leo, but they fight—Lydia, who desperately wants a romantic relationship with Leo, decides to stay with him. With Evan and HERE working against him to take control of the Order (in the interest of developing a game), Leo becomes obsessed with revenge, and he acts erratically. Lydia flails as she tries to hold the Order together, especially as Leo ignores her feelings. Things come to a head as Leo gets into deeper legal trouble. Leo is charismatic and manipulative, almost like a cult leader—he’s a fascinating character, and the novel’s chief antagonist. The book is really about Leo and how his magnetism affects those around him, and Lydia and Evan both convincingly grow as the work progresses. The prose is lively, and the story is fast-paced. The deeper message is a little muddled—the novel doesn’t seem to know if Leo or HERE or both are villains—but as a psychological study, it’s effective. It’s not quite a thriller, but it has something of that sensibility.

A fascinating psychological novel.