Cavallaro's Cavalcade of Carnage
Mountain of the Dead is the fifth book in Jeremy Bates' "World's Scariest Places" series in which Bates sets a fictional tale into real life locations such as the Suicide Forest in Japan, The Catacombs in Paris, and Island of the Dolls in Mexico. For Mountain of the Dead, Bates not only uses a real life location (Siberia) but also a real life event: The Dyatlov Pass Incident. Pegged as the greatest unsolved mystery of the 20th century, The Dyatlov Pass Incident concerns the unexplained deaths of nine Russian hikers in a remote section of Siberia in 1959. True: the tent was slashed from the INSIDE. True: several of the hikers had gruesome wounds and suffered violent deaths.


Intrigued? I was. One of the strengths of this book is Bates' ability to hook you into the narrative very early on. The premise is undeniable. However, I felt the hook slowly detaching itself during the book's second act. I typically do not enjoy books that have constant shifts in person or in time, so part of the detaching hook could be due to my personal preference. The offending situation here was the constant shift in time. You will have to see for yourself if this format works for you in this story. In any case, I think shaving a few pages off of the second act would've made for a leaner and meaner story.


Here's the good news: The ending of Mountain of the Dead is very fun. There is an excruciating passage for the claustrophobics out there, and there are a few VERY violent scenes in there that the Richard Laymon fans will surely enjoy. Thanks to Jeremy Bates for sending us an ARC of this novel. The ebook version is currently on sale.

Grade: C

Review by Jason Cavallaro


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