Customer Reviews

Signpost to Terror

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I read this book years ago, and it has stood out in my mind. This is a gripping story about a young woman fleeing from a killer on a lonely mountain trail. Gail is trying to escape from the pressures of her family while on vacation, and she finally gets a chance to slip away to hike by herself. Somewhere on that remote trail, she meets Lew. His face is familiar, and she realizes that she'd seen him at the bank in town... Gail is drawn to him and dosen't know that she will end up fleeing to save her own life. Gail learns alot on this day-- about survival, and, oddly, about forgiveness. I will never forget this story of a young woman's courage and compassion.

I picked up the 1967 Tempo paperback of Gretchen Sprague's "Signpost to Terror" for a quarter at a thrift store, hoping it would be a hard-boiled, maybe even lurid and exploitative, tale of horror. The impressive cover illustration, showing a long-legged young woman in blue jeans looking over her shoulder in abject fear, was promising. I was disappointed to find that it was essentially a young adult novel and about as horrifying as a Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys adventure.

Fifteen year old Gail is hiking alone in the Adirondacks, and sees some bank robbers, who then pursue her. (Didn't this also happen to Fred and Barney, and George and Astro?) Over the course of the story Gail grows as a person, overcoming her fear of heights and learning to love all humanity, including her annoying little sister and the bank robbers who try to murder her; the lead bank robber, a handsome young man who turned to a life of crime because his father abandoned him and the world is full of "phonies," dies in her arms in the final scene.

Besides being sappy, the novel generates little tension because there are three viewpoint characters besides Gail and we keep cutting away from Gail's story to learn about them and how they are growing as people. (The reader will be glad to learn that a fat kid starts losing weight after his encounter with the bank robbers. These bank robbers are very effective educators.)

"Signpost to Terror" is competently written, and for a juvenile novel, it is not bad. It was not at all what I was hoping for, but if you read thrillers because you want an uplifting message, maybe you'll like it.