Review: Culling the Herd by Edward R. Etzkorn

The seemingly innocuous phrase, “The few for the many,” proves to be a chilling mantra in Culling the Herd, a riveting thriller by Edward R. Etzkorn.

Tired of her four-year stint as women’s health editor for a second-rate magazine, Chloe Freestaff left the jungles of New York City twelve months earlier for the harshness of Kenya’s Mwenga National Game Reserve. Now nearing the end of her tenure, Chloe learns that an old African tradesman has stumbled upon “something evil” inside the game reserve. The long-suppressed journalist in Chloe smells a story, and she convinces him to show her what he saw in a nearby village.

What Chloe sees is horrifying evidence of a murderous event. During a tour of the village, she interviews several local boys who tell her of seeing a huge bird that had swooped down on the village before the incident.

Chloe excitedly writes up her story, and upon her return to New York, she shops it around but is disappointed that the only media interested in it is a weekly news tabloid. Desperate for the money the editor has offered her, Chloe reluctantly accepts both, but is mortified when the published version of her story is nothing more than sensationalist exaggeration. She nevertheless has a change of heart when it goes viral. Chloe basks in her new-found celebrity, resolutely putting the mass murder she has witnessed in the back of her mind – until a new assignment months later brings Chloe face to face with another unimaginable evil, the likes of which she’s seen before…

Culling the Herd has a lot of positives going for it, starting with Etzkorn’s protagonist, Chloe Freestaff. Although she desperately yearns to be the world’s next Carl Bernstein, very few people take her seriously, which impacts on her self-esteem. Chloe’s attractive – albeit a little heavy around the middle – but she’s also likeable, not to mention tough and resourceful when she needs to be. In other words, Chloe is both ordinary and heroic, the perfect protagonist for such an ambitious story.

Etzkorn’s writing also has a strong narrative flow that never wavers, even when it’s being told from multiple viewpoints. An old Kenyan tradesman, an ex-pat Australian helicopter pilot, and an emphysema-riddled senior are just a few examples of the many interesting characters that pepper the pages, adding richness and depth to an already complex story. Etzkorn also gives us villains of a different hue who appear to be driven by 21st century altruistic ideologies rather than the typical avarice or hubris that compels many villains in thriller fiction.

However, what makes Culling the Herd so sinister – and so very good – are not its villains or the heinous acts that are so vividly conceived. Rather, it’s the moral and theoretical dilemmas that a reader is faced with while reading the novel, and even after putting the book down. This, coupled with Etzkorn’s characterization of both the major and minor players in the novel, make this a book that will stay with you long after the last page has been read.