Mountain of the Dead (Book 5 of World’s Scariest Places
Mountain of the Dead
By Jeremy Bates
The Sexton’s musings (spoilers are likely):
Bates weaves an absolutely fascinating hypothesis explaining what happened to the Russian hikers in 1959 in Siberia. The chapters go back and forth between the 59 incident and present day. It’s very interesting to have someone give them voices and to make research based insights into the experiences and interactions of the 10 individuals. I’ve read a few things about the actual case and quite frankly what is written here is not that far fetched. As for the present day part, I think it’s interesting that it follows a writer who wants to discover the truth about what happened by following in the groups footsteps. Honestly I never would have done it. He has some substantial brass ones on him to go up into that mountain during the same time of year.
Corey, the writer, is a good character. He has some baggage that he is dealing with throughout the story but this just makes him more realistic as we all have something that haunts us. Corey might have some issues in that he drinks to self –medicate (yes even in -50 degree temps on a mountain) but I’d have to say that it’s Olivia that has the real problems. But we’ll get to her in a moment. First I’d like to talk about Disco. I like Disco and while he may be a secondary character I think that he brings a bit of humor and a whole lot of uniqueness to the table. I love the accent. When you are reading you can almost hear him talking.
Alright let’s address the elephant in the room…Olivia. At first I was not really one way or the other about her. She did not anger or annoy nor was she endearing or sympathetic. She just kind of was…until we hit the 16th hour and they were trapped in the tree, freezing to death because a VERY angry yeti is stalking them. And for good reason too…what she does is despicable…I just sat with my mouth hanging open catching flies for a good clip. She is the prime example of the evil in man. I’m not going to give it away but DAMN are you going to be happy when she gets hers! I was…I almost clapped…I know I smiled. I mean this woman is fucked! Royally and completely!
Closing thoughts:
If you want to learn more about the actual incident there is a dedicated website (where most of my pictures came from) that has a wealth of information about the investigation, the people that were involved and about the hikers themselves. Go to https://dyatlovpass.com/ you won’t be sorry. There are some disturbing images on there so be-fore warned. They have pictures of the bodies prior to the autopsies and some of them are not in the best shape. Others are completely intact and almost look as though they are sleeping. They had to let them thaw before conducting the autopsies.
It’s a really intriguing mystery that I think Bates did justice to. Quite frankly the normal, everyday, run of the mill explanations do not fit the scene. The governments explanation of an unknown “natural force” being the culprit is indeed an explanation that our author concludes however it’s not the “natural force” that you are expecting. I think it’s the likely one but if this is the case then why were they silenced? What did they experience? Something to swirl around Ghoulies!
