Blog Tour: The North Line by Matt Riordan

Hey everyone!
Today is my stop on the blog tour for The North Line by Matt Riordan. I am excited to be sharing an excerpt post with you all, so you can get a little taste for the book!

A massive thank you to @KaleidoscopicBT and @PRHGlobal for allowing me to be a part of the tour.

Title: The North Line
Author: Matt Riordan
Publisher: Penguin International
Publication Date: 2nd April 2024
Genre: Thriller
Age: Adult
Page Count: 320
Buy It Here: Amazon UK

Book Summary:

Even at the ragged edge of civilization, some lines should not be crossed.

Everyone believes Adam to be something he’s not. Sometimes that’s because he’s told them a story. Sometimes he’s told himself one. But when Adam joins an Alaskan fishing crew that’s promising quick money, the dangerous work and harsh lifestyle strip away all fabrications and force a dark-hearted exploration of who he really is.

On the unforgiving Bering Sea, Adam finds the adventure and authenticity of a fisherman’s life revelatory. The labor required to seize bounty from the ocean invigorates him, and the often crude comradery accompanies a welcome, hard-earned wisdom. But when a strike threatens the entire season and violence stalks the waves, Adam is thrust into a struggle for survival at the edge of the world, where evolutionary and social forces collide for outcomes beyond anyone’s control.

Excerpt:

The beach in front of them ended at a high cliff that rose up so that a view of the land above was impossible, but the beach itself was a scene of considerable activity. Pickup trucks and three-wheelers ferried people and material back and forth to skiffs pulled up on the gravel. The sound of work carried across the water.
“Bear,” said Cole. He was pointing at the beach. “Brown bear. Big fucker.”
What Adam saw first was not a bear but men. Men were dropping tools and walking quickly to the various vehicles, but none of them broke into a run. A couple of the three-wheelers sped down the beach, and one stopped to pick up a man who was walking. Adam searched but still saw no bear, and then the bear moved, and Adam’s brain accepted that the large blond object smack in the middle of his visual field was indeed a living thing. The bear was moving at a trot, clearly interested in the fishermen, and when it broke into a run, a roll of flesh traveled up and down its frame as it loped. The distance from the bear to the nearest group of fishermen shrank to less than fifty yards, and then the bear paused, rocking its weight from one paw to the other, and stretched its head forward, until the tip of its muzzle to the top of its shoulders made a straight line. Adam tried to guess at the distance across the head, from one ear to the other, but he didn’t trust what he saw. In any case the skull was bigger than his torso, the only thing handy as a frame of reference. One of the pickup truck engines started. Those who remained on the beach scrambled into the bed as the driver backed away. The bear seemed to read something on the air. It turned and walked into the water, its forward progress slowing only slightly as it began to swim toward the far side of the bay. The bear covered half the distance to the Nerka within a minute. Adam stepped to the rail to watch the only bear he had ever seen.
The skiff came into view behind the bear. It was an aluminum skiff with wooden bench seats. Adam counted six passengers. They were yelling and beating on the sides of the skiff, their voices filled with the unmistakable sound of men enjoying themselves doing something they shouldn’t. Adam was taking quiet satisfaction in the fact that he could safely look down on these fools when the outboard on their skiff emitted a sharp metallic note and quit. Impossible silence fell, and the bear stopped its forward progress. Treading water, it rose up and swiveled its head to look at the approaching skiff. Adam was amazed at how much of the animal came out of the water. The bear was close enough for him to see briars stuck in its fur. The momentum of the skiff carried it quietly over the water toward the bear, to within a dozen yards, and the men in the bow scrambled backward. The man at the outboard was frantically pulling on the starter rope.
“We might be fixing to see some guys die,” said Cole.
“We don’t have a rifle,” said Nash, “and I don’t see one on that boat, either.”
The bear sank back down into the water and swam toward the skiff. A second of panic gripped Adam, and he felt a flash of kinship with the exposed men, stupid though they might be. He started moving before he had a plan, then dashed into the cabin and retrieved a canned air horn he had seen in a drawer. The things he was looking at seemed incredibly clear to him, and time expanded to allow him to process each image—the thin line of rust on the seam of the can, the font on the label that looked to be from another decade, the triangular warning symbol, and the paragraph of print below it he didn’t read. Kaid looked up from the galley table as Adam went by, but he said nothing, and Adam didn’t explain. In the few seconds it took for Adam to return to the deck the bear had closed the distance to the skiff. A paw reached from the water and steak knife claws wrapped over the gunnel. The fur on the paw was long and it hung wet over bony knuckles. A screech rose as claws slid down aluminum. The bear was at the stern.
With two hands Adam raised the air horn up and gave three short blasts. Cole and Nash curled their bodies like shrimp and held their hands over their ears. The bear didn’t seem to notice
Kaid burst from the cabin. “What the fuck are you doing?”
Adam didn’t look over. “There’s a bear. I’m trying to scare him, distract him, call help, I don’t know. Get him to stop before he gets to those guys.”
He held up the can again, but Kaid snatched it from him before he could sound another blast.
“Cut that shit out,” he said as he took in the scene before him. “Doesn’t seem like he’s interested, anyway.” They all stood, watching as the bear tugged the gunnel down toward the water, rocking the skiff. The men aboard piled on top of each other in the stern corner opposite the bear. A tangle of urgent voices came over the water, but Adam couldn’t sort them out into words. The man on the outboard continued to pull the starter cord even as the bodies of the other passengers stacked up on him.
“Jesus,” said Adam. “Why don’t they swim for it?”
“Nobody’s outswimming a bear,” said Nash. “And anyway, if the bear doesn’t kill them the cold water will.”

About The Author:

Matt Riordan grew up in Michigan but spent his early twenties working on commercial fishing boats in Alaska. After college, Matt drifted from commercial fishing through a variety of jobs before landing in law school. He then became a litigator in New York City, where he practiced for twenty years. He now lives with his family in Australia.

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