A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense.

Why are you laughing? This is a thriller!Īre we not men? We are-well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z (2006).Ī zombie apocalypse is one thing. 'She knows that there is an app called Find My would show the last location where it had a signal.' Wait.

Fortunately for Elin, she does have a few insider tricks up her sleeve. Can I get over it?' What Elin can't get over is a tragedy in her childhood for which she holds her brother responsible it comes up every few pages until being resolved with a not-too-believable twist that may or may not be retwisted in a mystifying epilogue. ' So where could they have gone?' ' So what are my next steps going to be?' 'She examines the glass balustrade in front of her. This is murder'-as do what seem to be the protagonist’s questions to herself about how to move things along. As she slowly reasons her way through the unfolding situation, her deductions of even the most obvious points appear in italics-' That means Laure has another phone.' ' This…it isn't an accident. As overloaded, grisly, and ultimately silly as Pearse's locked-room debut may be, the biggest mystery is how Elin ever made it out of the police academy. Elin's creepy feelings about the trip are quickly confirmed as a storm cuts off access to the mountain, a receptionist is kidnapped, a dead body is found in the snow, and Laure disappears. Isaac is throwing a party to celebrate his engagement to Laure, assistant manager at the hotel, which has been the focus of local controversy due to its shadowy history. A hotel built on the grounds of a sanatorium has more dead bodies than paying guests.Ī police detective on sabbatical after flubbing a case, Elin Warner travels with her boyfriend, Will, to Le Sommet, a remote, glass-walled, five-star hotel in the Swiss Alps, at the invitation of her estranged brother, Isaac.

The sanatorium novel