Dead Five’s Pass by Colin F. Barnes is a wintery tale about a pair of mountain rescuers dispatched to find four young climbers headed to a location where two other young climbers met a gruesome end only a few hours before. The rescuers, Carise and Marcel, find a previously unknown cave filled with strange glowing symbols and housing a beastly presence in the form of tentacles sprouting hooks and spikes that latch on to and yank the unwary to certain death. Rarely does anyone escape the cave alive – and those that do have been damaged in terrifying ways. There is a subplot involving the now-ended romantic relationship between Carise and Marcel – and the unborn baby that they lost. This creates some minor tension between the two which is quickly lost when the pace of the story escalates.
Overall, Dead Five’s Pass is a decent, if not fairly predictable read. The frigid atmosphere of the Canadian Rockies provided a good setting for the bleak story line. The tension is established early and you will be set for the ride. The characterizations are somewhat wooden, but they are serviceable for the plot. The thrills really pick up when Carise and Marcel enter the cave for a second time (see below for a comment about this). The action becomes nonstop and what the couple finds deep within the cave added an extra chill to the read.
The book does have a number of gaffes that gave me pause while reading. First, Carise and Marcel engage in incredibly stupid behavior – namely going into the cave for a second time. I found myself thinking, “Oh, come on” and groaning at the too-often used horror cliché at taking a stupid course of action (at least they didn’t split up while underground). Second, the author struggles with weather continuity. At times, it is snowing, at other times it is not, then the characters are in the midst of a blizzard… and people are flying helicopters in blizzards with no visibility – in the Rockies, no less. Third, Carise and Marcel discuss a theory that the presence of adolescents in the cave has somehow awakened the creature. The young climbers are described as “kids” and teenagers. However, they are also graduate students and medical students. At the very least that would make them in their mid-twenties – young but not teens. These types of things nudged me from the narrative flow and had me wondering what the Darkfuse editors were thinking when they were reading the work.
So, overall, a good read, but not outstanding like other Darkfuse titles.
Overall, Dead Five’s Pass is a decent, if not fairly predictable read. The frigid atmosphere of the Canadian Rockies provided a good setting for the bleak story line. The tension is established early and you will be set for the ride. The characterizations are somewhat wooden, but they are serviceable for the plot. The thrills really pick up when Carise and Marcel enter the cave for a second time (see below for a comment about this). The action becomes nonstop and what the couple finds deep within the cave added an extra chill to the read.
The book does have a number of gaffes that gave me pause while reading. First, Carise and Marcel engage in incredibly stupid behavior – namely going into the cave for a second time. I found myself thinking, “Oh, come on” and groaning at the too-often used horror cliché at taking a stupid course of action (at least they didn’t split up while underground). Second, the author struggles with weather continuity. At times, it is snowing, at other times it is not, then the characters are in the midst of a blizzard… and people are flying helicopters in blizzards with no visibility – in the Rockies, no less. Third, Carise and Marcel discuss a theory that the presence of adolescents in the cave has somehow awakened the creature. The young climbers are described as “kids” and teenagers. However, they are also graduate students and medical students. At the very least that would make them in their mid-twenties – young but not teens. These types of things nudged me from the narrative flow and had me wondering what the Darkfuse editors were thinking when they were reading the work.
So, overall, a good read, but not outstanding like other Darkfuse titles.
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