Thriller in disguise

Jeff VanderMeer's Hummingbird Salamander (2021) certainly doesn't sound like a thriller. And with its cover showing a colorful hummingbird against a white background, it certainly doesn't look like a thriller. Aren't thrillers supposed to have black covers? And yet  a thriller is what it is, and a particularly fine nail-biter and edge-of-the-seater at that.

VanderMeer’s story takes place in the near future when the United States is near collapse because of climate change and environmental disaster. Or because of the consequences of the Biden administration, if you prefer.

A large woman (six feet tall, 230 pounds) who works as a security consultant. "Jane Smith," as she calls herself, has a husband and daughter at home. One day she receives a box containing a stuffed hummingbird, possibly the last of that particular species. A cryptic note from someone named Silvina hints that there is a stuffed salamander out there somewhere that she should find.

Jane once thought she might like to become a detective, and so she begins trying to unravel this mystery. It dominates her life, causing her to neglect both her job and her family. She and those around her are soon in grave danger. The mystery deepens, bodies pile up and eventually her quest takes her back to the beginning — her own beginning.

By the novel's end it begins to read like science fiction, but until then it reads like a thriller, an unusually good one.