Jeff Long The Wall

The Wall

Jeff Long

Atria, Jan 2006, $24.00

ISBN: 0743266161

Thirty-five years ago, buddies Hugh Glass and Lewis Cole climbed Yosemite's El Cap Mountain where they also met their future wives. However, now Hugh's wife is gone and Lewis' spouse is divorcing him. Yearning for a repeat of their greatest triumph, the two friends agree to climb El Cap again, though they do not expect to find the respective highlight film of their lives when they met their beloveds.

Hugh and Lewis are lonely and missing their wives as they begin the ascent. However, they soon find a corpse of an apparent person who fell off the cliff. Shocked already, a wild caveman Joshua attacks the two climbers and abducts the body they found. They continue their trek when they run into a search and rescue guide Augustine who hunts for his missing fianc e. Lewis abruptly leaves the climb, while Hugh joins the SAR guide on his quest to find lost climbers, even as a nasty storm is coming and Joshua stalks the two men.

The key element to this exciting thriller is the treatment of THE WALL; the mountain side seems like the prime protagonist with Hugh and Lewis acting more like major support players. For instance the description of the impact of gravity on a woman falling off the wall will shake the audience. The tension picks up as Hugh helps the SAR guide while Lewis leaves, and never slows down through a shocking final twist that will leave the audience longing for more natural thrillers like this tense tale.