Hell's Gate

by Stephen W. Frey

Book Overview

It's fire season in Montana... From New York Times bestselling author Stephen Frey comes a riveting new thriller about a disillusioned star litigator who goes west to forge a new life in Big Sky... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 141654965X
• ISBN13: 9781416549659
• Release Date: August 2009
• Publisher: Atria Books
• Length: 326 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.4" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Surprise Mystery

I have read numerous books authored by Stephen Frey. But this one surprised me for it varied from his other works that are typically heavy in the world of business/finance. A good read.

I Enjoyed It

See book descriptions above. I didn't think this was as bad as many people thought. It might be that I spent my childhood in Southwest Montana and can relate quite a bit to the Bitteroots, as well as the fishing and some of the characters. The story itself was a departure from this author's normal genre but I enjoyed it nonetheless. My biggest gripe would be the authors quick wrap up at the end. Not all that satisfying and it sort of affected the novel as a whole. Will still keep Stephen Frey as an author I won't miss.

Not his best book

Mr Frey branches outside of wall street on this one. but it is a good suspenful novel. Worth the read.

May well be Frey's most complex and intriguing work to date

Stephen Frey was known primarily as an author of financial thrillers, perhaps most notably for his series featuring Christian Gillette. The majority of his work, however, has consisted of stand-alone novels. Recently he has been edging away from the world of commodities trading, corporate takeovers and high finance. While his latest offering, HELL'S GATE, is involved to some extent with business matters, Frey goes far afield, both geographically and topically, from Wall Street. The result may well be his most complex and intriguing work to date. HELL'S GATE takes place in the isolated setting of Fort Mason, Montana, and commences with a number of independent storylines that, while occurring in the same geographical area, begin to converge almost from the beginning of the narrative but do not thoroughly intersect until well after the book's midway point. Each are equally interesting in their own right. Hunter Lee is a relatively young, wildly successful trial attorney with a white shoe New York law firm where, it turns out, there is an unequal division of work and reward. He has a reputation that precedes him into Fort Mason, where he has brought a legal action against Bridger Railroad, the negligence of which has resulted in horrific injuries to Hunter's clients. His success in the case is greater than he anticipates, but his triumph is tempered when he has divorce papers served upon him just as the trial is concluded. Hunter's brother, Strat, is a long-time resident of Montana who, in the aftermath of the trial, attempts to persuade Hunter to move to the area. Strat is employed by Butch Roman, the owner of an extremely successful construction company that is in the middle of a project for Callahan Foods Company, one of the area's major employers and whose owner, Dale Callahan, is being pressured to sell a part interest in his company to Katrina Mason, the latest generation of the family that established the isolated town of Fort Mason. Mason is functioning as a straw figure for George Drake, the unprincipled CEO of Bridger Railroad. Callahan, on the other hand, is friendly with U.S. Senator William "Big Bill" Brule, who owns a logging company in the area. Brule has left the day-to-day operations in the hands of his older son, Jeremy, who is close to overseeing the ruination of the business. It is Brule's younger son, Paul, who is better suited to run the company, but he wants no part of it. Paul is a respected, almost legendary Fire Jumper who finds himself in the area after a series of mysterious fires destroy thousands of acres of timber. Just about everyone, from Big Bill to Hunter to Drake, has one or more secrets here; and the mystery that hangs over the entire proceeding is not so much who is profiting from the fires but who is profiting the most. The characters in HELL'S GATE are broadly though not especially deeply drawn. However, the pristine setting and the interwoven plots call to mind such epic television series as "The Big Valle

Kept me guessing until the very end!

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 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 from the lack of trees, a powerful Senator, unfaithful wife, vindictive business partner 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 liked 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 don't even like 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 awe