The Water Knife

Starred review from March 16, 2015
Hugo Award–winner Bacigalupi (The Windup Girl) delivers an ambitious, genre-dissolving thriller and a timely cautionary tale. In an indeterminate near future, extreme water shortages have made the Southwestern United States a dystopia, with the privileged few living in elite “arcologies” with self-generating water recycling systems. The depleted Colorado River has become one of the last lifelines and the object of armed conflict among the residents of Arizona, California, and Nevada. Angel Velasquez is a “water knife,” a sort of mercenary factotum, whose job is to secure as much water as possible for his Las Vegas boss, arcology developer Catherine Case. Sent to investigate a possible water source near drought-stricken Phoenix, Angel soon crosses paths with an idealistic journalist, Lucy Monroe, whose underground dispatches put her in constant danger. As vigilante bloodshed and desperation threaten to consume Phoenix, whispers of a 150-year-old document surface that may settle the water rights dispute and bring life back to the desert metropolis. With elements of Philip K. Dick and Charles Bowden, this epic, visionary novel should appeal to a wide audience. Seven-city author tour; 150,000-copy first printing. Agent: Russell Galen, Scovil Galen Ghosh.

March 1, 2015
In his sixth novel, Bacigalupi (The Doubt Factory, 2014, etc.) imagines the vicious conflicts that might arise in a world of severe water scarcity.In an American Southwest devastated by severe drought, Angel Velasquez is a "water knife" for one of the most powerful people in the region. When his boss, Catherine Case, wants to cut off a city's water in a game of ruthless political maneuvering, Angel descends upon it with helicopters, guns, and unshakeable loyalty. He chases rumors of something that might transform the region's balance of power to Phoenix, a city in a state of precarious near-collapse, where he finds himself entangled in the lives of Lucy, a journalist, and Maria, a young and desperate refugee. The three of them plunge into a frightening mess of political betrayal and merciless greed, desperately trying to second-guess the plans of people who will do anything to wield the power and wealth that water bestows. While the characters sometimes slip into the uncomplicated types that inhabit a slick action movie and the plot suffers from an excess of tidy coincidence, the frightening details of how the world might suffer from catastrophic drought are vividly imagined. The way the novel's environmental nightmare affects society, as individuals and larger entities-both official and criminal-vie for a limited and essential resource, feels solid, plausible, and disturbingly believable. The dust storms, Texan refugees, skyrocketing murder rate, and momentary hysteria of a public ravenous for quick hits of sensational news seem like logical extensions of our current reality. An absorbing, if sometimes ideologically overbearing, thriller full of violent action and depressing visions of a bleakly imagined future.

Starred review from March 1, 2015
Printz winner Bacigalupi depicts a horrific would-be world, destroyed by climate change: the American Southwest has run out of water, and immense political instability is the result. Las Vegas is controlled by the opportunistic Catherine Case, who cuts waterlines to neighboring cities and suburbs. California is run by rich water corporations, which ruthlessly blow up damns to redirect water. Phoenix, like some sinister Tatooine, has become a harsh dust-world of depravity, ruled by capricious, indiscriminate overlords. Bacigalupi's vivid, entirely sympathetic, if not entirely virtuous, characters, begin in Phoenix as strangersAngel, Catherine Case's thug; Lucy, a Pulitzer-winning journalist covering the water wars; Sarah and Maria, two young teenagers planning to cross the border into wetter Californiabut they are brought together, implicated in a region-wide battle over a secret water contract. The Water Knife is a cautionary tale. Though the gory details may be hard to stomach for some, the horrific violence perpetrated against innocents in this lawless world is compellingly portrayed and, sadly, not unfathomable. Readers will find it hard to look at a glass of water the same way.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

December 1, 2014

In the dry and thirsty Southwest, where states fight over what little remains of the Colorado River, Angel Velasquez "cuts" water for his rich boss. Things get ugly when he's sent to investigate rumors of a power play to monopolize the river. This is the New York Times best-selling Bacigalupi's first thriller for adults since his Hugo, Nebula, and John W. Campbell Memorial Award-winning debut, The Windup Girl.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from February 15, 2015

Angel is a water knife for the South Nevada Water Authority, pitting himself against anyone who threatens Las Vegas and its control of water rights from the precious reserves of the Colorado River even if it means cutting desert communities off at the knees. Lucy is a journalist chronicling the desperate state of affairs in drought-ridden Phoenix. Maria is a refugee from Texas struggling to make ends meet. Their lives converge in a city dying from a lack of water but drowning in violence, and all become tangled in the search for long-lost water rights that could change the power structure of the American Southwest. VERDICT Hugo and Nebula Award winner Bacigalupi (The Windup Girl) has written a fresh cautionary tale classic, depicting an America newly shaped by scarcity of our most vital resource. The pages practically turn themselves in a tense, taut plot of crosses and double-crosses, given added depth by riveting characters. This brutal near-future thriller seems so plausible in the world it depicts that you will want to stock up on bottled water. [See Prepub Alert, 11/24/14; seven-city tour; highlighted in "Editors' Spring Picks," p. 35.]

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2015

Drought and climate change mean that water knives like Angel keep busy protecting the interests of those who want to control the water supply. Angel winds up in parched and dying Phoenix, where his path intersects with that of a journalist and a refugee as they all search for documents that could change the balance of power for the region. (LJ 2/15/15)

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2015

Angel Velasquez "cuts" water in the drought-ravaged Southwest. As wealth and corruption increasingly determine who can drink, he is sent to Phoenix to investigate a possible new water source. There he finds a journalist, a refugee, and a murderous plot to control an entire river. VERDICT Organized crime, a bleakly realistic take on apocalypse, and three original character perspectives make this near-future thriller a compelling read. (LJ 2/15/15)

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.