Based on e-book
There are many legends about the Nahanni River in the Northwest
Territory, many of them featuring headless corpses and skeletons,
and disappearances, a river of ghosts. Cheryl Kaye Tardif has
placed her paranormal techno-thriller in this beautiful and awesome
part of northern Canada. I love how she describes everything so
well that each scene is vividly implanted in the reader's mind, so
much so that one can almost hear the falls, the rapids, and boiling
currents of the river, the rustling of the leaves in the wind. This
descriptive mode is captured throughout the book, even through the
horrors to be found when Del, with a team and guide, searches for
her father. He was believed dead for several years, after
disappearing in the Nahanni area, but now Del has reason to believe
he is alive.
It all begins when an elderly man shows up in her classroom with a
message and a journal. She recognizes the message as something her
father always said, and finally discovers that she has known this
man, he is a friend of her father's and he also disappeared from
that ill-fated group of men. He appears much older than he should,
and very ill, but he says her father is alive and gives her a
journal with instructions to "follow" her heart. He is taken away
to a hospital where he is rapidly aging and dying. Del turns to the
journal and discovers it has been written in some kind of code.
There also seems to be a map of some sort. She knows she will do
anything to find her father, and her ex-boyfriend is ready to
assemble a search team and make the arrangements.
What a mixed bunch of characters make up the team! Del (Delila)
Hawthorne is a Professor of Anthropology and her young assistant
Peter insists on going along. Jake, who she meets first at the
hospital and again at Bio-Tec where her father had worked, and TJ,
her ex-boyfriend. Peter brings Miki, who is a math savant and may
be able to break the code, and Jake brings his assistant, the fiery
and fiercely jealous Italian, Francesca. A lone vacationing
computer programmer, Gary, is stranded when his wilderness party
doesn't show up, and Hawk, the Dene guide adds him to their party.
It doesn't take long for problems to arise, both natural and
man-made. Who is trying to sabotage their trip? When Del's
medication for MS disappears, who would have taken it? Was it the
feisty Francesca? A romantic connection seems to be building
between Del and Jake. Could Gary be someone other than who he
supposedly is? Will finding the secret river give them answers, or
more questions? The river is very hazardous as they near the falls,
but Miki and Del believe they have to pass this spot to arrive at
what they think will be the location to find the secret river. Hawk
does not believe there is a secret river, but he does recognize
what the landmarks are on the map. As they portage up the falls,
they think the worst must be over, but will soon rethink
that.
A tense, strange trip to destiny lies ahead. Not just their
destiny, but the destiny of the human race. Can they stop the
inevitable? Layers of horror lead to more danger for the team. I
won't tell. This book is character- and action-driven, terrifying,
and yet tender at times even in its intensity. Cheryl has a knack
for writing the gamut of human emotion, and in this case even
inhuman. A good thriller, graphic in some places, but deftly
written. A real nail-biter.