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Summary
Summary
One of America's most acclaimed suspense writers now serves up a bracingly original nail-biter that takes us deep into the rugged terrain of the Utah mountains. Sherry Carrigan O'Toole can't seem to apply the prescriptions she offers in her bestselling self-help books to her own life. Six years after her marriage to Brandon disintegrated and he won custody of their son, Scott, there's no room in their lives for her. Hoping to win back the teenager's heart, Sherry arranges a week's skiing at the plush SkyTop Village resort. But Scott has other plans. Determined to evade his mother's clutches, he jumps at the chance to join a foolhardy adventure: flying a Cessna through a nighttime storm to Salt Lake City for a Metallica concert. After the plane crashes, Scott is lost and alone in the frozen wilderness, miles from anywhere anyone would search for him. As Brandon and Sherry revisit the old battles that tore them apart, they have to fight a bureaucracy that wants to abandon the search even as their son struggles to survive impossible odds. Barely alive, Scott finally finds a cabin for shelter. He thinks his troubles are over. When he discovers the truth about the man who lives there, however, it's clear that his terror has hardly begun. With his latest page-turner, John Gilstrap cements his position among today's most ingenious thriller writers.
Author Notes
John Gilstrap is the acclaimed author of Nathan's Run and AT All Costs, both of which were selections of the Literary Guild. A former firefighter and EMT, he is an explosives-safety expert and an environmental engineer. He lives with his wife and son in Virginia.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Suspense veteran Gilstrap (Even Steven) falls back on one of his familiar themes-young person in peril-for this rousing, if hokey, adventure set in Utah's Wasatch Mountains. Scott O'Toole, the teenage son of celebrity shrink Sherry O'Toole, goes down in a small plane in the snow-covered backcountry while en route to Salt Lake City. As Scott struggles to stay alive, mom and dad-long-divorced-bicker over who's at fault for their son's disappearance. The local authorities, meanwhile, launch only a halfhearted search; the U.S. president is scheduled to stop in later in the week for a special environmental event, and most resources have been sidelined to prepare for the visit. Scott finally straggles up to a remote cabin, only to find it inhabited by a heavily armed, twitchy man named Isaac DeHaven. Pressured by Scott to explain the presence of two dead bodies on the property, Isaac acknowledges he's a professional hitman. Scott conceals his panic and manages to plot his escape and return to safety. But then he gets to thinking: DeHaven's a hit man and the president's coming to town. Gilstrap's plot rolls along with the momentum of an avalanche, culminating in a well-executed finale on the ski slopes. Yet his characters drop some feeble lines ("it's so unfair," observes Scott of his crisis), and Scott seems oddly cool under pressure for a boy of 15. Still, Gilstrap shows once again that he knows how to provoke an armchair adrenaline rush. 5-city author tour. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
A catalogue of all the things that can go wrong when a 16-year-old sneaks off to a Metallica concert, all served up in Gilstrap's inimitable breakneck style. Since his parents split up, Scott O'Toole's spent most of his time in D.C. with his father Brandon. So his mother, bestselling pop psychologist Sherry Carrigan O'Toole, wants to make his one week with her at Utah's SkyTop Village-a week when the president himself is on hand to visit his hometown-into teen heaven: nonstop skiing (even though she doesn't ski) with minimal supervision. Her plan works so well that Scott's soon flying to Salt Lake in his new pal Cody Jamieson's little Cessna. But since Cody's flying into a snowstorm with no instruments, no radio, and a 21-year-old amateur's experience, the plane drifts off course and comes down in a tree, killing Cody and leaving Scott at the mercy of cold, hunger, and wolves. Apart from his blue hair and his fondness for heavy metal, Scott's a resourceful kid, considerably more mature than his money-hungry mother, and he's benefited from some survival training he took with his dad. He'll need every ounce of energy, grit, and ingenuity he can muster to survive in the snowy mountains while rescue crews, mustered from a scant police force whose first priority is protecting the president, search the wrong places again and again. After three days without food and water, Scott finally stumbles upon human habitation. If only the human involved weren't the most dangerous man in Utah-one whose involvement with Scott, no longer at risk of starvation or hypothermia, will lower the danger while paradoxically increasing the suspense. With one shameless eye on your blood pressure and another on Hollywood, Gilstrap (Even Steven, 2000, etc.) runs roughshod over publicity-hound agents, rule-bound justice-system bureaucrats, and absentee parents in a headlong rush to wring every possible thrill out of Scott's week with his mom.
Booklist Review
Gilstrap's fourth novel is just as exciting as its predecessors (Nathan's Run,1996; At All Costs, 1998; and Even Steven, 2000). Sherry O'Toole is a best-selling pop-psychology writer with a messy personal life: her ex-husband has custody of their 16-year-old son, Scott, and she's running out of schemes to shift her boy's allegiance. A ski trip may be her last hope. But the rebellious Scott's plans don't exactly include spending time with Mom. A newfound friend, a pilot, plans to take Scott to a concert, but a snowstorm gets in the way, and they fly into a tree. Now, with his friend dead, Scott is alone, in below-freezing temperatures, with no idea where he is. And his parents, who can barely stand the sight of each other, must join forces to find him. Gilstrap takes a few chances here--especially interesting is his decision to make Sherry so immensely unlikable--and the reader is rewarded with an alone-against-the-elements story that's fresh, suspenseful, and memorable. Gilstrap is one writer who just keeps getting better. David Pitt