Jeremiah Salinger was an award winner screenwriter. Whilst looking for a subject for a new series he goes on a 'shout' with the Dolomite Mountain rescue. He is the only survivor of a tragic accident that leaves him with PTSD, nightmares & depression. His daughter Clara is the only one who can bring a smile to his face. The family now live near the border between Austria and Italy in the savage beauty of the mountains.

On an outing to a visitor centre to the Bletterbach - an area rich in fossils, he by chance hears about the brutal murder of three young people thirty years ago. A murder that has never been satisfactorily solved. Trying to find answers shakes him from his depression but it soon becomes an obsession that looks like destroying everything he loves.

This wasn't a fast moving tale. It crept up on you until you realised you wanted the answers almost as much as Salinger. The writing is great & the descriptions are captivating. There are also many surprises along the way. All in all a fantastic five star read- up there with the best of the year.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for letting me read & review this terrific book.

It takes a special type of person to live in an isolated village where the elements are your closest and most dangerous enemy. The beauty of the surrounding nature is simultaneously also the siren song of the dangers hidden beneath the perfect exterior.

Salinger is traumatized by a helicopter crash on the mountain. The event itself caused emotional turmoil and also hallucinatory events, which leads him to think he is connected with the mountain. The mountain becomes a living breathing entity in his mind. The beast claims its victims without discrimination. It swallows them whole and only spits them out of its icy interior now and again.

D’Andrea describes the mentality of the small village or town environment with great skill. Unless you were born and raised there you will always be the outsider, especially if you are different in any way shape or form. You can live there for decades and still be the foreigner, the intruder or the person they are least likely to trust with secrets from the inner sanctum.

This secrecy is part of the problem when it comes to this small population, because they will do anything to ensure the safety of their fellow inhabitants. This is probably the reason the Bletterbach murders have remained unsolved for so many decades, despite the viciousness of the attack, the possibility of one of them being a killer is a thought they would rather not contemplate.

It’s an intriguing combination of existential fears, post-traumatic stress and a calculated killer. There was an element of the story I found a wee bit out there though, and perhaps detrimental to the story, mainly because it made it veer into the beyond belief spectrum.

Aside from that it is a well-thought out crime with a surprisingly savage killer and a captivating environment. I wonder if D’Andrea will be revisiting Salinger again.

Overly long story of an investigative journalist who becomes obsessed with murders that occurred years before and his hunt to discover the culprit. The story is interspersed with long descriptions of the journalist's personal issues and of his family life, particularly his love for his daughter. Occasionally absorbing, more often tedious, it was a relief to reach the end and move on to more rewarding literature.

First off, well done on the translation of this gripping novel by Luca D'Andrea. It felt completely American in all respects and would have fooled me if I hadn't already known it was originally written in Italian.

The Mountain kept me guessing from the first page. Initially, I was wondering what I was in for as we built Salinger's backstory of documentary film making. I kept looking back at the description wondering if I was reading the right book. Fear not, We do get there in good order as the stage is set for this pervasive, subtly unnerving book.

The second point I should mention is that I found Salinger, our main character, a thorough jerk but it didn't detract from the story one jot. He runs around causing disorder and upset for everyone around him yet manages to fumble his way to clues that could reveal a cold-case murderer in this idyllic, sleepy mountain village in the Dolomites. A lovelier, more picturesque location to raise a child couldn't exist but the perfection is hampered when Salinger learns of the 30 year old murder of three local youths and can think of nothing else.

The sense of natural serenity conflicts strongly with the darker undertones generated by the details of the gruesome murder to create pitch-perfect conflict for Salinger and those looking to forget. It really is masterful writing and so worth a read. I could not wait to find out what happened and was not disappointed by the big reveal.

The Mountain by Luc D'Andrea

Jeremiah Salinger will never forget 15 September. There was a crash, people died, and he will never stop blaming himself. It had all seemed like a good idea at the time – that Salinger (his mother is one of the few people to call him Jeremiah), his wife Annelise and their little daughter Clara would take a break from New York and return to live for a while in the village of Siebenhoch, high in the Italian mountains, where Annelise was born and her father, Clara’s doting grandfather Werner, still lives. But Salinger is a filmmaker, he is driven to tell stories and, not for the first time, it’s going to get him into trouble.

The events of 15 September leave Salinger traumatised, in need of giving his life new focus, to find new questions to answer. By chance he learns of the savage murder of three students in the nearby Bletterbach gorge in 1985, an atrocity that continues to haunt Siebenhoch. This new challenge will give Salinger the spark he needs to reignite his life but with it comes great risk. This is not a community that welcomes questions.

The Mountain is, with no doubt at all, one of the most engrossing and compelling novels that I’ve read in a long time. It is steeped in atmosphere, increasingly intense, with a geographical setting that surrounds the story from start to finish in spectacular scenery and the harshest weather of winter. It’s a novel of ice and snow, cold and frost – and this describes many of the villagers, not just the weather they endure for so many months of the year. Siebenhoch is located where the borders of several Alpine countries meet and this has led to countless years of ethnic conflict and war. The area might be at peace now but its distrust of foreigners and visitors remains. It’s hard to get to know these people and, even though Annalise belongs, Salinger most definitely does not. But how he tries.

The novel is narrated by Salinger. He takes us inside his thoughts, into his trauma as well as deep into his heart that belongs wholly to Annelise and the utterly adorable Clara. This little girl is enchanting and brings something extra special to these pages. The whole family unit is vital to the novel, struggling as it is to help Salinger recover from what happened to him. At times this is agonising. We want to shake Salinger, to wake him up. But he is caught in a nightmare. He is self-aware and at times there is humour but he is a man obsessed.

The story at the heart of The Mountain is fantastic. There are elements of thriller, crime fiction and horror here, all glimpsed through Salinger’s troubled mind, but the murders he is investigating are most horribly real. The tension builds, in the story and inside Salinger’s head. And meanwhile the snow falls and the cold wind blows and the darkness descends.

We’re trapped inside a small village, the weather has closed in, the mountains overshadow everything. This is perfect for an atmospheric thriller. But at the heart of The Mountain is the village of Siebenhoch and the people who live there. Luc D’Andrea brings them to life. Salinger is a complex, troubled and loving man and he is portrayed beautifully. Although my heart belongs to Clara.

The intensity of the novel kept me at bay for a few chapters but I soon made the decision to commit and when I did I was rewarded with a fascinating tale that kept me up late at night reading, immersed fully in this wondrous, lethal landscape where the very worst can happen and does. Howard Curtis is to be congratulated for his fine translation from the Italian. Nothing at all, I would suspect, has been lost. The Mountain is a rich, disturbing and multi-layered thriller, the kind you can very easily lose yourself in, just as I did. Just wrap up warm – this is a thriller that chills.

Before I start with the actual story and characters, I need to praise the translation of this book. There were only a few, times when a word jarred with me and, on looking it up, I though a different, more common would have been better. So much so that it wasn't too long through the book when I actually forgot it was originally written in Italian.
This book was another one of those that was for me initially a slow burner but it soon got under my skin and I became as obsessed with things as the main character. I usually prefer my reads to be hit the ground running, high octane, action all the way, type books but I have read quite a few of these slow burner books recently and have to admit that the change of pace is very refreshing and that I really rather like them.
We start with a bit of background. Mike and (Jeremiah) Salinger are documentary makers whose claim to fame and indeed stardom was a series about rock group roadies. Leaving that behind, Salinger has moved to live with wife Annelise and daughter Clara near to where Annalise grew up and near her widowed father Werner. A small village in the Italian Dolomites named Siebenhoch. On arrival, his interest is piqued by the mountain rescue service and, once again, Mike and Salinger team up to film their new series based on this. One day though, tragedy strikes when Salinger is on a mission with the rescue service and they get caught in an avalanche; Salinger being the lone survivor. Wracked with survivor guilt, he starts to suffer quite badly with PTSD but tries to stay positive for his daughter who is very bright and astute. Then one day, whilst on a visit to a nearby historical site with Clara, he overhears a conversation which refers to an old, unsolved murder from 1985. This reignites the investigative spark within him and thus begins a rather dangerous obsession with the old case that threatens everything in Salinger's world including, at times, his own sanity.
Boy did this book get under my skin. I started off reading, wondering where on earth we were going and, if truth be told, how much longer until we actually got somewhere. Yes, I'm trying to say that it is a little slow at the start. But it has to be. Scenes need to be set, background has to be explained and foundation must be laid. All these things have to happen for what happens next to work. But, believe me, if you are finding it a wee bit slow initially, please, please stick with it. It isn't too much longer to go until it really starts to get juicy, albeit it still on the whole a bit confusing, and then, once we really get going well, there's just no looking back; or respite! I'll go back to the confusing bit if I may. Well, the story is told by Salinger himself and, to be honest, for the majority of the book he's a bit of a mess; mostly mentally, occasionally physically - well, he does get beaten up a lot! His main aim is to get to the truth of what happened back in '85, with the brutal murder of the threesome, he thinks if he solves it, this act will also cure him of his evil, the voices, the beast as he calls it. To be honest, he's a wee bit bonkers but then who wouldn't be given what he went through.
Apart from Salinger, Mike, Annelise, Clara, Werner and the rest of the cast, the character that really shines brightest in this book is the setting itself. With the majority of the book set in and around bad weather, it really does take on a sinister, claustrophobic tone, matched by the tricky terrain and complemented by the wonderful and rich history and traditions; especially the Krampus.
The story is brilliant. Spooky and almost ethereal in places it's a chilling tale of secrets and lies and small town mentality. The close knit community that really looks after itself and is very wary of strangers and tourists, even though it relies on such people for survival. It was also the reveal that kept on giving as assumptions and judgements were initially made but latterly discarded in favour of other scenarios as Salinger bumbled his way towards the absolute, and rather shocking, truth of it all.
All in all, a book that really grew on me, one that I very nearly abandoned early on but am so glad that I didn't. One that, once in its thrall, I found very hard to put down. One that left me shocked but satisfied at the end. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

Dark and atmospheric, the story slowly drew me in and kept hold until the very end. A brilliant portrayal of a small tight-knit community with intersting characters and deep harrowing secrets.

A well written story based in a remote mountainous region in the Dolomites where time moves slowly and the people base their lives on tradition. Jeremiah Salinger is an American-German, married to local girl Annelise whose family is completed by the delightful five year old, Clara. Salinger is a TV film maker and after a dreadful tragedy he promises his wife he will no longer risk his life. Curiosity, however gets the better of him when he learns of a triple murder that happened in the area some 30 years previously. Against the wishes of his wife and the warnings of others to leave well alone, his obsession at the very least threatens his marriage but more sinister revelations risk far more. His determination to find answers threatens his and his family's very existence. Beautifully descriptive, a good plot and great characters made this book an absorbing read.

Sadly I couldn't get on with this book at all. I'm not sure if it was the translation ,but I found the style clunky and the opening chapter one of the most off-putting and confusing starts to a book I have come across. I was unable to finish it.

Beautifully descriptive novel of an old mystery of murders ignored for years but investigated by our hero, a man damaged in a horrific accident saved by his admirable 5year old daughter and wife. Terrible secrets gradually revealed keep the tension bubbling nicely until the classic denouement at the scene of the original crime. Good stuff!

In search to the answers about an old mysterious series of deaths in the mountains, a successful documentary maker and his colleague work on the mystery of how a team of rescuers all went missing. Out of a terrible sense of complicated guilt, Salinger struggles to recover from the nightmares that are destroying his marriage and the light of his life, his small daughter. His obsessive search breaks up his partership with Mike, his filming colleague, and the producer who financed them ... the old man, father to his beloved wife, participated too all those years ago and shares the bad memories - but it all gets very complicated. In some ways the complexity was sometimes beyond me, but it did not matter since the characters were so well drawn and true -and the settings and depiction of landscape and the struggle to survive in cold mountains with unseen dangers .. and so it had been in the past - there are twists right up until the end and last minute betrayals - just keeps on giving.

Jeremiah Salinger, who produces a successful tv documentary called 'Road Crews' is commissioned to
film a new series about a local Italian mountain rescue service. Unfortunately whilst out on a rescue mission with them, the helicopter is caught in an avalanche on the landing site, and Jeremiah is the only survivor. He suffers tremendous survivor guilt and blames himself for the accident.
During his recovery period he hears about the decades old, unsolved, murders of 3 students whose bodies were savagely mutilated and becomes obsessed with the case, to the detriment of his marriage and precious relationship with his daughter.
He is determined to find the truth and despite local opposition, and knowing he is jeopardising his marriage, he carries on, only to find that the answer lies uncomfortably close to home.
This is a well written novel, and alongside an intriguing murder mystery, strongly depicts a mistrusting closed off mountain community who do not like outsiders probing into what is considered their business. It portrays well the effects of PTSD, and obsessive behaviour, and how they can escalate to cause difficulties in family and external relationships, and life in general.
Many thanks to Netgalley and Quercus books for a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Salinger, his wife Annalise, and their daughter Clara move back to Siebenhoch, in the Italian Dolomites, where Annalise grew up. Following an accident, Salinger becomes obsessed with the murder of three young people which took place in the Bletterbach canyon in 1985. What follows is an absorbing read, with twists and turns constantly shifting the ground beneath the reader's feet. The story has a mounting sense of almost claustrophobic dread as it moves inexorably towards what really happened in 1985. Recommended if you love slow-burning suspense.

Wonderful book, gripped me from start to finish, didn't want it to come to an end. The relationship between Salinger, Anneliese and Clara was beautifully drawn. Stunning conclusion at the end.

Really enjoyable thriller that kept you guessing right to the end. Also interesting description of life in a small village where divisons over where you are born rumble on. Great read!

I like the concept.
I tried to like it.
The more I read the less I understood what was going on.
Sadly, not a book I would recommend.

My thanks to Netgalley and Quercus Books for a copy, though they will not like this review

This is a brilliant thriller translated from the Italian, set amidst the spectacular location of the Italian Dolomites in the Alto Adige, in the South Tyrol, an area I am familiar with and adore. New Yorker Jeremiah Salinger and his partner, Mike, famous for their 'Road Crew' features are hoping for the same success with their new documentary on a local Italian Helicopter Mountain Rescue Service. Jeremiah has recently located to Alto Adige, close to Siebenhoch, with his wife, Annelies, who grew up here, and their young daughter, Clara. Out on a mission, the entire crew with their rescued survivor perish after an avalanche hits them, Salinger is the sole survivor. Feeling and hearing the hiss of The Beast inside him, suffering from survivor's guilt and PTSD, Salinger is a broken man. He plays fast and loose with his medication, unsurprisingly, this hampers his progress. The only bright light in his life pushing him to recover is Clara. Out on a trip with her to the prehistoric graveyard that is the Bletterbach, he overhears a fateful conversation referring to a trio of gruesome murders that took place over thirty years ago. Salinger feels a look into the killings will help him to anchor his sanity, but has little inkling that his growing dark obsession will endanger his family and himself as the secrets of the past begin to raise their ugly heads in the present.

Salinger begins to gather information about the case, in the process upsetting locals unhappy about an outsider interfering with their business. Kurt, Evie and Markus were discovered in April 1985, horrifically and gruesomely murdered in the Bletterbach by a rescue team consisting of Max, Hannes, Gunther, and Werner (Anneliese's father), during a devastating storm triggering numerous landslides. Bletterbach is a place mired in myth and legend, malevolent and cursed, where an entire community, the Fanes, disappeared in the distant past, where locals took witches who never returned. Despite getting beaten up, and promising his wife to stop investigating, Salinger cannot let go, even as he tussles with The Beast that has taken up residence within him. His search takes him down numerous blind alleys. With numerous twists, Salinger follows the mystery until the truth emerges, a truth that just happens to be a little too close to home.

I found this a well plotted, exciting and gripping story that I just could not stop reading. The location is the strongest character with the forbidding mountains, ice, snow and storms. The local folklore such as the Krampus, is captivating, and the obstinate, insular local community that does not welcome outsiders is an authentic depiction. Jeremiah is a complex, compelling character, irritating, obsessive in nature, flawed, apt to forget his family responsibilities, but it is these qualities that lead him to uncover the secrets held by the distrusting locals, almost costing him everything he holds dear. I could not resist a quote from the novel from Jeremiah as a child: "Nothing bad could happen to me. I believed that up there in heaven, there existed a deity that protected book lovers from the ugliness of earthly life." Not true, but a wonderful thought. A book I loved reading and highly recommend. Many thanks to Quercus for an ARC.

Northern Italy, the Dolomites, and hence the Dolomite Mountain Rescue. When I was young, Bolzano was still divided between those whose affiliations were with German-speaking Austria and those who wanted to be Italian. Small villages abounded, with their terraces, and complex family structures, and plenty of space between them and the next small village. Prosperity changed all that, with tourism bringing money directly into the valleys, and the mountain rescue crews using helicopters to reach the injured or the stranded quickly.
This may sound idyllic, but it was and remains an area of danger, despite the existence of clear paths that are well maintained. But, as always in a complex crime novel, there are still well-remembered secrets, into which outsiders are not meant to roam.
Enter an American with a wife from Siebenhoch, and a family house into which to settle with their five-year-old, and grandad in his own house nearby. Salinger is a gifted screenwriter, who has worked for years with his best friend. Continuing to work together depends on modern methods, such as Skype, and seems to be working well until Salinger joins the helicopter crew to shoot film during a rescue mission. But the weather is treacherous, and it all goes terribly wrong. Salinger has survivor guilt, PTSD, and a disinclination to take his meds. The Devil fills the gap in his idle hands, and here begins a long, twisty, amateur investigation of a cold case from 1985 that is the village's dirty secret: who killed three young people from the village and hacked them to pieces? And why?
The book concentrates on the men, not just Salinger, but his father-in-law, and other important mainly male villagers. Salinger, not always tactful, gets the full blast of local resentment on more than one occasion when the locals feel they're being used. Perhaps the most frightening character is the mountain itself, where once there were mines in which men died if tunnels collapsed. Or perhaps fear itself is the key to horror. So it's not as if Salinger has enough trouble living with his memories of the helicopter crash. In the course of his researches he discovers that a scientist, searching the abundance of fossils in the area, hypothesized that there might be monsters (not the scientist's word) in the deep, from the deep lakes of the mountains' tunnels. If J. D. Salinger is one of the book's ghosts, certainly Gerard Manly Hopkins is another:
Let me be fell: force I must be brief.
O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap
May who ne'er hung there.

I enjoyed this book but I would have enjoyed it more if it had been shorter. The plot is good but I had to concentrate to read to the end. I think a shorter book would had a faster pace and been a better read.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Quercus Books for an advance copy of The Mountain, a thriller set in the Alto Adige, the German speaking part of Italy.

Jeremiah Salinger is a successful documentary maker and hits upon the idea of following the Dolomite mountain rescue service in his wife's small Italian town for a new series. It is all going well until an accident with the crew leaves no survivors but Salinger. Suffering from PTSD he overhears a conversation about an unsolved murder on the mountains in 1985 and resolves to solve in an attempt to aid his recovery. It is not a subject the villagers wish to discuss and his persistence causes all sorts of problems.

I think that how much you enjoy this novel will depend on what you like to read. I didn't particularly enjoy it, due to the circuitous nature of the plot and the fact that Salinger is not a particularly likeable protagonist.

There is a good plot in the novel and an ingenious solution but getting there is a real drag. The novel is told in the first person so the reader gets intimate with Salinger really quickly but that's more intimacy than I needed. He consciously lies to his wife, Annelise and blunders around upsetting almost everyone he comes into contact with. All with the aim of healing himself - he gets quite hysterical with fear about "the beast" which could be a creature from the deep or just a manifestation of his inner fears - without taking his prescribed medication. Selfishness is not an endearing characteristic.

As he stumbles around asking questions and snooping he gradually comes to a solution about what happened all those years ago on the mountain. It is certainly interesting but it takes so long to unfold I lost heart and got to the stage that I couldn't care less.

The Mountain is not a novel I enjoyed but I think readers who like a flawed, character driven novel will enjoy it as it is well done.