A beautifully done cliche. An action/adventure morality tale. Mack's father taught Mack about life, but could the son ever be as good and as wise as his father? The good guys and the bad guys are never really in doubt, but we can't always be as good as we want to be, can we? Indeed, Mack's fall begins when his father dies. In part, out of grief (an excuse we'll always forgive) and in part because Mack wants to save his ranch (also forgivable) which leads him to make deals with the bad guys. We know Mack has officially fallen when Vonny, his true love, leaves him. Her unerring moral sense tells her it's time to go. Mack's unerring moral sense makes him hate himself, drinking and drugging, working for criminals. This all takes place in the beautiful wilds--the pre-moral state of nature. If the plot, Mack's struggle for redemption, is a total cliche, the writing mostly isn't, transcending the genre.

So, what is the metaphor of the signal? The literal signal is just a macguffin. I'm going to say that it represents that sign from wherever leading Mack out of the darkness back to The Good. It seems pretty clear [spoiler alert] that at the end, Vonny will somehow find her way back to Mack. We've been given all the signals to know this, from Kent's acting out (Vonny's moral sense can't ignore this!) to her allowing the term "our" in the couple's ritual dialog. ( )

i gave up on this one... a little too incoherent for me... sold it back to BAM during their Earth Day promo this year ( )

Very nice nature painting in the telling of a hiking/camping trip of a few days in the Wyoming hills. Very nice story of the strained relationship between a divorced couple making this last trek together. The double-barreled thriller aspect of the story seems a little forced, given how good the less melodramatic parts of the novel are, but even these aspects are involving. It is a slim novel, and worth the read.

The only thing going for this book was the fact that it's short in length. The back cover sells it as a love story, with intrigue, but the only mystery is why this couple -- who are already divorced, with one in a new relationship -- would agree to go camping together in the first place.

Mack, the annoying male lead in this melodrama, is constantly ragging on his ex, because of what her new beau purchased for her. "Oh, nice camera. Did Kent buy that for you?" "Those are expensive binoculars! Did Kent get those for you?" And so forth. I was ready to slap him.

Vonnie, Mack's ex-wife, makes a big deal out of having him turn away when she gets dressed in the morning. She refuses to get nostalgic with him, as they hike through familiar territory. She is insistent that she is solely along for the fishing. I wanted them both to get lost in the woods, and allow me to find my way to a better story.

There is also intrigue thrown in. I suppose because Carlson cannot come up with a meaty relationship between Mack and Vonnie, the two shallow main characters. It seems that Mack also does some work for a secret government agent, all on the Q.T.. He relays codes from remote locations. On this particular camping trip, his mission is to track a downed spy plane, using his government issue Blackberry. Throw into the mix a couple of meth addicted elk poachers, and you've got a mishmash that sounds like a bad movie pitch in some Hollywood executive's office.

On the plus side, I now know to avoid any books by Ron Carlson. ( )

De bons éléments psychologiques sous-tendent une intrigue qui tient le lecteur en haleine d'un bout à l'autre. C'est très bien écrit et remarquablement traduit. De belles descriptions du Wyoming sauvage. Un très bon livre que j'ai lu d'une traite. ( )