Hell's Gate: A Novel

It’s summer. Hot, dry, windy and Montana is burning. Hunter Lee, at the suggestion of his brother Strat, has left New York City, a failed marriage and an extremely successful junior partnership at a prestigious law firm behind and moved to Fort Mason, Montana. Hunter and his brother attempt to uncover the identity of who is behind the recent mega-fires that are destroying homes, thousands of acres of timber, farms, livestock and now human fatalities. Suspense builds throughout Stephen Frey’s latest novel, Hell’s Gate; the fires continue to burn while Hunter and Strat discover that even small towns are filled with incendiary secrets.

A few years ago, I was up in Montana visiting the in-laws, and my mom-in-law mentioned a friend of show more hers had just recently started up a company that supplies the wildfire and smokejumpers with meals, cots, showers and bathrooms. I remember thinking that a really shady, disreputable type could possibly use this type of contract with the Forest Service to really line their pockets if they figured out a way to start the fires. And that is part of the premise of Hell’s Gate. When the author thought of how much money independent air cargo companies get paid to shuttle firefighters around the west during fire season, and how much food services get paid, he came to the same conclusion I did. It wouldn’t be all that difficult to arrange a lot of fires and make lots of money. The question in this novel is who is doing this. Add to the air cargo company and food service company, a railroad who has just been hit with a 40 million dollar payout from a lawsuit, a timber mill going out of business the lack of trees, a powerful Senator, unfaithful wife, vindictive business partners and you just have a whopper of a story.

I don’t know if Stephen Frey has spent a lot of time in Montana or simply researches the heck out of his books, but I can tell you, having lived there for the first 30 years of my life, he just nails it.

Many of the towns in the novel are fictional, but I know the area he sets them in, and he portrays it very well. The mountains, trees, fly-fishing, grizzly bears, the bars and café’s, the vastness of the state are captured superbly. When the wildfires explode, I swear I could almost smell the smoke.

I like this book. A lot. I want to go fishing. I want a big ole greasy cheeseburger in a dump that makes great food. I want to drink a cold beer on a hot afternoon while the smell of fresh cut hay fills the air. (And I hate beer.) I want to stand next to the Mission Falls, see a bear cross the road in front of me, hear the horrifyingly scary sound of a mountain lion screaming late one night up in the hills. (Sounds like a woman getting murdered…I swear it does…) I want to see that pesky herd of deer that invade my mom-in-law’s front yard every evening and eat the flowers. *sigh….I think I’m heading north soon…I’m feeling the need for a little Montana….

Oh…almost forgot…the story was awesome. I didn’t figure out the who, what and why until the author revealed it, and how great is that??!!

‘Nuff said, hie yourself off to the bookstore today and git yerself a copy….its derned good readin’. (And it comes out today, so it’ll be easy to find. Right there, front of the store, just as you walk in the door.) show less

One of my former bosses was a smoke jumper at one time in his past. He jumped out of planes to fight fires in the Idaho area and later led crews throughout fire season. He was a pretty interesting guy and told great stories about his adventures in a really laconic way. I thought of him when I picked this book up.

All the elements of a good thriller were here - Montana, smoke jumpers, mysterious fires burning down Montana, untimely deaths, suspicious business and political doings, but for me it just didn't come together. The plotting was just okay. The setting is lovely and a story centered around smoke jumpers would be pretty cool (only this isn't that). There's a lot of testosterone, lots of men being manly in a manly world doing manly show more deeds. The characterization here is shallow enough that if you were to scrape it with your fingernail you'd just come up with a little dirt under the nail.

I was trying to decide while I was reading this what about it wasn't working for me. I thought and thought and then it hit me! This is the male equivalent of a Harlequin romance - a Harlequin bromance, if you will. Enough said. show less

One different aspect of this novel is the view of going through a divorce from the male perspective.

After all of the wildfires of the past year (2018), this was a particularly interesting novel to read and definitely elevates respect for all smokejumpers who dedicate their lives to fighting wildfires.

When thirty-five-year-old lawyer Hunter Lee decides to turn his back on the New York City rat race that has made him rich but cost him his marriage, he takes his brother's advice and sets out to build a new life in the beautiful but isolated town of Fort Mason, Montana. However, escape is hardly what he finds there.

Hunter befriends Paul Brule, a Fire Jumper -- one of an elite corps of firefighters who parachute into remote wilderness areas to put out blazes before they become infernos -- and gets a terrifying firsthand look at the reality of vast tracts of forest being reduced to ash in seconds by hundred-foot walls of flame. In this tiny town where everyone seems to have a secret, Hunter comes to suspect that this particular rash of show more summer fires is anything but accidental and could, in fact, be serving a more sinister purpose.

As Hunter follows his instincts, Montana becomes a crucible where good and evil collide -- and where one man, running from his past, takes on the burden of exposing the guilty while saving himself and those he cares about most from the greatest danger they have ever faced. show less