Publishers Weekly
Suspense veteran Gilstrap (Even Steven) falls back on one of his familiar themes-young person in peril-for this rousing, if hokey, adventure set in Utah's Wasatch Mountains. Scott O'Toole, the teenage son of celebrity shrink Sherry O'Toole, goes down in a small plane in the snow-covered backcountry while en route to Salt Lake City. As Scott struggles to stay alive, mom and dad-long-divorced-bicker over who's at fault for their son's disappearance. The local authorities, meanwhile, launch only a halfhearted search; the U.S. president is scheduled to stop in later in the week for a special environmental event, and most resources have been sidelined to prepare for the visit. Scott finally straggles up to a remote cabin, only to find it inhabited by a heavily armed, twitchy man named Isaac DeHaven. Pressured by Scott to explain the presence of two dead bodies on the property, Isaac acknowledges he's a professional hitman. Scott conceals his panic and manages to plot his escape and return to safety. But then he gets to thinking: DeHaven's a hit man and the president's coming to town. Gilstrap's plot rolls along with the momentum of an avalanche, culminating in a well-executed finale on the ski slopes. Yet his characters drop some feeble lines ("it's so unfair," observes Scott of his crisis), and Scott seems oddly cool under pressure for a boy of 15. Still, Gilstrap shows once again that he knows how to provoke an armchair adrenaline rush. 5-city author tour. (Feb.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
A catalogue of all the things that can go wrong when a 16-year-old sneaks off to a Metallica concert, all served up in Gilstrap’s inimitable breakneck style. Since his parents split up, Scott O’Toole’s spent most of his time in D.C. with his father Brandon. So his mother, bestselling pop psychologist Sherry Carrigan O’Toole, wants to make his one week with her at Utah’s SkyTop Village—a week when the president himself is on hand to visit his hometown—into teen heaven: nonstop skiing (even though she doesn’t ski) with minimal supervision. Her plan works so well that Scott’s soon flying to Salt Lake in his new pal Cody Jamieson’s little Cessna. But since Cody’s flying into a snowstorm with no instruments, no radio, and a 21-year-old amateur’s experience, the plane drifts off course and comes down in a tree, killing Cody and leaving Scott at the mercy of cold, hunger, and wolves. Apart from his blue hair and his fondness for heavy metal, Scott’s a resourceful kid, considerably more mature than his money-hungry mother, and he’s benefited from some survival training he took with his dad. He’ll need every ounce of energy, grit, and ingenuity he can muster to survive in the snowy mountains while rescue crews, mustered from a scant police force whose first priority is protecting the president, search the wrong places again and again. After three days without food and water, Scott finally stumbles upon human habitation. If only the human involved weren’t the most dangerous man in Utah—one whose involvement with Scott, no longer at risk of starvation or hypothermia, will lower the danger while paradoxically increasing the suspense. With one shameless eye on your blood pressure and another onHollywood, Gilstrap (Even Steven, 2000, etc.) runs roughshod over publicity-hound agents, rule-bound justice-system bureaucrats, and absentee parents in a headlong rush to wring every possible thrill out of Scott’s week with his mom.
