Lake Mountain [Hardcover]

Steve Gerlach (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 504 pages
• Publisher: Bloodletting Press (October 31, 2005)
• ISBN-10: 0976853108
• ISBN-13: 978-0976853107
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,273,382 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I am one of Australia's few thriller writers. Born and bred in Australia, my fast-paced, cut-to-the-bone thrillers are a refreshing voice in the dry, barren Australian literary scene.

My background includes many varied roles. I have worked as an editor for a book publisher; as the editor-in-chief of an Australian motorcycle magazine; editor and publisher of an international crime magazine, Probable Cause; a researcher and columnist for a major Australian daily newspaper; a Technical Publications Officer in the security industry; marketing executive for an international telecommunications software company; and I currently work in the field of international transit producers.

I also worked as the Historical Advisor on the Australian film, Let's Get Skase, and I'm working hard in partnership with Probable Cause Productions to see crime and horror tales be brought back to the Australian film scene.

I live in Melbourne, Australia, and I'm currently working on a new novel.

I hope you enjoy my work and have as much fun reading my novels as I have bringing them to you. My aim is to produce a once-in-a-lifetime ride for all my readers. I pick you up at page one, lock you in tight, and then never let you go - until the last page. Keep your hands inside the cage at all times and enjoy!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lake Mountain -- the author's best work to date!, January 29, 2006

By 

Reader in Seattle - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lake Mountain (Hardcover)

Steve Gerlach (THE NOCTURNE, LOVE LIES DYING, et al) continues his macabre exploration of the deviancy and devilishness of the human psyche with his latest release, LAKE MOUNTAIN (2005, signed/limited HC, Bloodletting Books).

A hybrid of classic noir and dark menace, this chilling road trip to Lake Mountain is a frenzied ride that will leave new readers breathless...and longtime Gerlach devotees engrossed and impressed with the new level of maturity and character complexity that Gerlach has infused into this splendid new work. As with his other works, what Gerlach deliberately lacks in subtlety -- and in one particular scene in LM, he eclipses the extremism of his other works tenfold -- he more than makes up for in his vivid depiction of both a landscape and mindscape of madness and desperation.

LAKE MOUNTAIN is Gerlach's finest work to date, and deserves a prominent place on the bookshelf of anyone who enjoys outstanding horror fiction or the moldering-but-treasured Gold Medal noir paperback-originals of the 50's and 60's.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lake Mountain is a page turner, January 29, 2006

By 

tug (Georgia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lake Mountain (Hardcover)

This is the second novel by Steve Gerlach that I have read. The first being RAGE, which was an excellant read.

Lake Mountain is one of those can't put it down stories. There is an underlying sexuality to the story that adds to the more "blatent" moments. As is the case in many tales of horror and suspense, if the young ladies had not acted foolishly from the start they could have avoided a lot of pain and sorrow. Of course, then there would have been no story.

There were a couple of scenes that aren't for the very squemish, but believe it or not, they added to the fun of the novel.

If you like your horror with a sexy touch and want a story that will keep you reading then Lake Mountain is for you.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not for the squeamish..., January 30, 2006

By 

Reader for the Ethical Treatment of Authors "... (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lake Mountain (Hardcover)

Writing a review for a Gerlach novel is a difficult thing. His books unfold with cliffhanger building upon cliffhanger so that by the end you're falling through the pages faster than physics should allow. To elaborate on *this* scene in chapter four or *that* scene in chapter fifteen just to entice a would-be reader doesn't necessarily harm the structure Gerlach has in place, but it does cheat the reader of those surprises in their proper sequence - there's a reason the sentences, paragraphs, and chapters are short, it's all part of the suspense-building that echoes the plot's momentum.

Following on the trail blazed by THE NOCTURNE and RAGE, but to a far greater extent in LOVE LIES DYING, is LAKE MOUNTAIN, not just another thriller, for Gerlach doesn't write mere thrillers, he writes Psychosexual Thrillers which involve protagonists who take both sexuality and psychology to jaw-dropping extremes. No matter how skewed the sexuality becomes it is always plausible because Gerlach does his homework, as such, he knows what he's talking about and it comes across in the way things happen and the way things are described. You'll be shocked at what people can do, but you'll be even more shocked when you realize Gerlach's not pulling this stuff out of a magic plot hat - some of these things really do happen. So it was with LOVE LIES DYING and so it is with LAKE MOUNTAIN.

This one concerns two friends, Raven and Amber, who find themselves involved with a corpse and a race against time to get rid of it. It's a study in friendship, love, lust, jealousy, and the lengths people will go to control themselves, others, and their circumstances. There aren't a lot of characters in this book, just Raven, Amber, the corpse of Duke (technically, he's around long enough to qualify as a character) and a mysterious fourth who happens upon the situation (or does he?). Bit players drop in and out, but this novel is basically the story of four people, one dead, the other three jockeying for the aforementioned "control," and narrated by Amber, the woman in the middle of it all.

The characters are well-fleshed and the titular setting is vibrantly realized. He's written another fast-paced yarn that will thrill and shock. However, it really isn't for the squeamish...or, apparently, those who find it non-paradoxical to regularly give five star reviews to books and movies they hate.