The Mountain King - Softcover

Hautala, Rick

3.61

284 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0843948876 ISBN 13: 9780843948875

Publisher: Leisure Books, 2001

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1st Leisure 2001 edition paperback fine book In stock shipped from our UK warehouse

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From Publishers Weekly:

Even a monster of such legendary stature as Bigfoot isn't big enough to carry Hautala's routine pursuit-and-capture scenario very far. The tale begins promisingly, with a riveting scene atop Mount Agiochook in Maine: Mark Newman watches helplessly as his friend Phil Sawyer is plucked from a ravine by a Sasquatch. Mark can't get any friends back in town to believe what he says he saw; moreover, he becomes the prime suspect in Mark's disappearance and, later, in the bestial murder of his wife's lover. In this marked departure from his usual tales of ghostly terror, Hautala (Beyond the Shroud) shows a deft hand for orchestrating action and suspense, making Mark the object of two manhunts--by the townspeople and by the monster--when he returns to the mountain to search for Phil. After a few close scrapes, though, the potential for Mark to do anything but play hide-and-seek with his pursuers is exhausted, and Hautala resorts to obvious plot stretchers: characters fainting dead away at the end of chapters, sudden nocturnal forays into town by creatures that have kept their distance from humans for centuries and the gruesome demises of victims who exist solely to prolong the story with their death throes. Although designed to deliver the sort of thrills that would make anyone squeamish about being alone in the woods, this novel ultimately settles for the guilty pleasures of its villains' tabloid infamy.

From Library Journal:

During a hiking trip high atop Mount Agiochook, Mark Newman watches in horror as a Bigfoot-like creature carries off his injured friend, Phil. While searching the mountain, Mark becomes a suspect in Phil's disappearance and the murder of his wife's lover. Hautala is known mostly for writing paperbacks and adapting role-playing games as novels. Regrettably, his second hardcover novel is simplistic, unimaginative, and poorly written. It reads like the script for a made-for-TV movie, with a completely plot-driven story and little attention to character development. Hautala aspires to terrify through action alone?and fails. Not recommended.?John Noel, Tennessee Technological Univ. Lib., Lebanon
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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