The Water Factor, a Rightfully Mine Novel, is a 2024 International Firebird Book Award winner for best dystopian novel and a Literary Titan Gold Award recipient for best thriller. The book is a confronting eco-thriller showing environmental devastation that will surprise and engross readers until the final page.
The novel opens dramatically in 2039 with James Hokama Byrne, grandson of Chief Tahoma-Kiche, leading a team to steal water trucks and take them to the reservation where his grandparents live. The battle began years ago, when water was labeled a commodity rather than a right, and Glacier Oceanside joined the ranks of the world's largest water cartels. Top executives didn't count on being confronted by James Hokama Byrne, an employee the company mentored since his high school graduation. But delivering to drought-stricken farms and getting kidnapped in Ethiopia changed the young man's outlook. When the Glacier Oceanide started draining aquifers on his grandfather's reservation to send to bottling plants and marijuana farms, something within him snapped. He couldn't remain silent.
The plot lures readers into the manipulations and crimes of water cartels, drug lords, and utility companies that operate openly and with little oversight. The action takes place in eastern Oregon, Ethiopia, and on an Indian reservation in the high desert. To ensure authenticity, Eichinger was aided by members of the Warm Springs Reservation in Oregon and was assisted by Ed Edmo, a consultant to the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, and by Ethiopian migrant families. The story is exciting and radical, with an urgent message to humanity. It engages readers through love affairs, murder, and kidnapping. Those who like action with a touch of romance and cry for misused populations, won't want to miss this call to get involved.