This overwrought thriller is full of dramatic plot twists, ruthless killing and noble self-sacrifice. Jace Wilson is a 14-year-old boy who has seen a murder in Colorado.  The killers are now searching for him, and plan to kill him so he can’t testify against them.  He is in witness protection, but he is still at risk.  Jamie Bennett is an independent agent who is looking to find a more secure hide-out for him.  She comes to Ethan Serbin in Montana.  Ethan teaches survival skills to teens who have got into trouble with the law, taking them out onto the mountain and showing them how to make shelter and forage for food.  He agrees to allow Jace to be included in one of the groups.  So much of the story features Ethan, Jace and some other teens, and the killers, Jack and Patrick Blackwell, on a mountain.  There is also a forest fire to complicate things.  Characters die early and cruelly in this story, so we know that Koryta is ready to kill off major figures in the story, so there is real threat that Jace, Ethan, or his wife Allison won’t make it to the last page. 

Kortya works hard to give psychological motivation to his characters. We learn about Ethan’s father’s judgment of his life choices and Jace’s developing alter ego as he lives with a new identity, pretending to be a troubled teen.  We learn a lot about Hannah Faber who stations a fire tower and watches over the forest to alert others about fires.  She lost her boyfriend in a fire and she is haunted by the memories of their life together and his death.  So we know that she will play a major role in the story, because she has tragedy in her past.  We even learn something about the psychopathic killers, the Blackwell brothers, who have a close relationship and a very distinctive style of talking to each other unemotionally as they go about their killing.  They have some peculiar ideas of honor and no feelings of sympathy for those they kill, but they also seem to enjoy the suffering of others. 

However, the psychology is superficial and unconvincing, and the book is full of plot gaps that render it extremely implausible.  (Readers’ comments on Amazon.com spell out what those gaps are.) So ultimately this is not a particularly interesting thriller.  But it is entertaining.  The reading of the unabridged audiobook by Robert Petkoff is perfectly adequate.  He maintains a calm and steady tone, giving the characters different voices, and introducing some passion at crucial moments. 

© 2014 Christian Perring

Christian Perring, Professor of Philosophy, Dowling College, New York