Customer Reviews

Lake Mountain

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

This is the story of two girls, a dead body, and a trip into the mountains. With a lesser writer the book might never have moved beyond that simple premise. However, Steve Gerlach writes with such power and such skill, and twists the plot and characters in so many ways, that the end result is one of the most involving and exciting books you are likely to read for a very long time.

The story is told from the point of view of Amber, the more timid of the two girls, and it is her relationship with Raven that drives the story along. Without wishing to give too much away, Amber's character develops as the storyline unfolds, and no one is more surprised than Amber herself at the directions she moves in. And those directions are extreme!

This is full-on hardcore horror, and I haven't seen it written better since the heyday of the great and sadly missed Richard Laymon. But Gerlach is no Laymon copycat. He has a voice and a style of his own that will win him his own fans, as well as pleasing those looking for someone to fill the gap left by Richard Laymon's untimely death. This is not a book for those easily shocked, but for the rest of us it is the best thing to come on the market in a long, long time.

After reading Rage, his first book, I knew that Steve Gerlach was an author to watch. After Lake Mountain he is an author to buy and read and read again. This book impressed me, both with the skill of the writing and the intensity and tension of the story. His drawing and development of the characters is such that, half way through the book, I found myself falling for Amber, right up until.... but that would give too much away!

My final summary is simple. Buy this book. Read this book. Tell everyone about this book. It's that good!

I just love Steve Gerlach, he's an amazing author and the lovliest man.

I became hooked after reading the brilliant RAGE and decided I had to get hold of everything he's ever written.

LAKE MOUNTAIN was like going on the ride of a lifetime and I felt as if I was with the two main characters, Raven and Amber every step of the way.

It's obvious that Steve cares a great deal about his readers. If anyone who is thinking about reading this book checks out his website, they will see he made a trailer to show the location of some of the most important parts of the story.

I honestly can't praise LAKE MOUNTAIN highly enough, it was one of my top books of last year, and the adventure stayed with me for a long time afterwards.

This is one I'll be reading again and again.

1st off ignore any reviews from people who have a problem with good authors. If Gerlach basis his novels on Laymon, then he is basing it on one of horrors masters.

Gerlach has his own style and is one's of horror's brightest authors out there. This book is one of my fave's, nearly as good as the magnificent Love Lies Dying.

Anyone who has had Gerlach recommended to them has enjoyed him. Check this out and I gurantee you'll think it's good.

Raven and Amber are 2 friends and Lake Mountain is the story of there journey to get rid of a body...there are some great twists and some totally out of there scenes that any horror fan will enjoy.

Say no more....just check this guy out if your a fan of Richard Laymon, Brian Keene and Brett McBean.

First of all I would ignore any comments from people who consider Richard Laymon to be a "Great Writer" . Laymon insulted a great deal of teenagers when he portrayed them all in his books as being Hormonally Charged Lust Crazed Young Men And Women whose sole objective in life was to have sex with anything that moved and had a pulse. Hopefully his fan's taste in Horror will mature given time. This offering by Steve Gerlach is a poorly written book about two girls named Raven and Amber. These girls are on the run in search of a safe place. Sadly one gets the impression that Mr. Gerlach took a 4 week course at his local TAFE in "Horror Writing Made Ezy 101" and then decided he could write a Horror Novel.It is also very unfortunate that he has yet to realize that good Horror is written with Restraint as can be seen by the excellent works of Phil Rickman as opposed to the immature scribblings of Richard Laymon. I threw this book into the trash can where it belongs.If good Horror can be seen to be French Champagne this book would have to be a rough flagon rotgut Red.Also from the author's photograph it appears that he can't make up his mind wether he is pretending to be Johnny Cash (The Man In Black) or Roy Orbison (Dark Sunglasses). I do get the impression that he is trying to manufacture and "live up to" an "image" of a tortured Existential "Artiste".This book also has one of the sickest most sexist covers I have ever seen on a Horror Novel and I have been reading Horror for over 35 years. One cannot help but wonder if the author is a mysogynist.