Miles away from the hectic city, Reed and Rebecca hike into the beautiful Northwestern woods. They're surrounded by gorgeous mountains, waterfalls, and hundreds of acres of unspoiled wilderness.
But something-or someone-begins closing in on them. Something no human has ever seen. And it's killing everyone in its path without remorse.
Best-selling author Frank Peretti has sold more than 12 million novels about angels, demons, and dragons. That was just the warm-up.
From the master of suspense and supernatural thrillers comes the season's hottest page-turner.
Be warned: this monster's got teeth.
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
In this long-awaited novel, Peretti (This Present Darkness; The Visitation) tells the story of a young woman who disappears in the Idaho wilderness and the ensuing search for her. The author's prose is clear and crisp, with only a few lapses into Lovecraftian hyperbole: his description of the novel's almost mythical setting is rich and detailed without being overwritten and his characterization of the woman, Beck, and the very unusual creatures she encounters is compelling. Peretti successfully incorporates several contemporary detective drama/suspense thriller tropes; one of his main characters, for example, is a crime scene investigator, and welcome doses of forensic evidence and DNA analysis are thrown into the mix. But the novel suffers from too many supporting characters, and Peretti's failure to develop them greatly compromises the conclusion. More problematic, though, is the novel's agenda with regard to the theory of evolution. Not raised overtly until the middle of the book, Peretti's critique of certain aspects of Darwinism eclipses the story and leads it to an unsatisfying and somewhat confusing end. As in Peretti's previous novels, those who hold conservative views are portrayed as heroic and those who disagree as evil. The novel's devolution into this simplistic moralism, however, will not keep Peretti fans away, and its many merits may attract other readers as well.
From Booklist
Policeman Reed Shelton is guiding his wife, Rebecca ("Beck"), on a no-frills wilderness hike when a strange being attacks them, and they are separated. Bloodied and shaken, Reed crawls back for help, thinking Beck is probably dead. But she's been kidnapped by a band of apelike creatures that may embody what the people of backcountry Idaho tell their tall tales about: Bigfoot, aka Sasquatch. Or there may be another explanation: renegade researchers have been fiddling with DNA and have altered the offspring of chimpanzees into "monster" form. The monsters have escaped. This kind of thing--trying to improve upon God's creation--is red meat to Peretti's evangelical readers, but he doesn't develop the issue. Instead, he pumps up the suspense as a hunt is mounted to find Beck, but since the reader pretty much knows her fate, the suspense seems mechanical. When the true "monster" is revealed, he (or she) has little time on stage, and Peretti's argument about DNA more or less falls away. Peretti has so many readers that his new novel belongs in every library.
ISBN: 9781595540324
Catalogue code: N/A
Publisher: THOMAS NELSON - published 15/04/2005
Format: Paperback