October Skies

Alex Scarrow has produced another thumping good read in October Skies to follow his previous outstanding novel Last Light. Switching between 1856 and the present he tells a gripping story of a lost wagon train and the documentary film maker who stumbles on the remains of their last camp and tries to piece together their tragic story. In the manner of the famously ill-fated Donner Party a group of settlers composed mainly of Mormons together with some others are trapped in the forests of Wyoming by the onset of winter. The Mormons, under their charismatic leader John Preston, insist on their own separate camp and offer minimal cooperation with the others who they consider ungodly. A camp of Paiute hunters is discovered nearby and when one of the tribesmen walks into camp carrying the mutilated body of one of the Mormon women only the firm intervention of the wagon master,Keats, keeps things under control. In the present time the film maker and his partner find the diary of an Englishman with the party which chronicles the steady break up of the group and the descent into to madness of the Mormon leader. However, there are forces at work that want the story of the wagon train suppressed as it links with one of the candidates in the Presedential election and they are ready to take extreme measures to ensure that this is so. Alex Scarrow has cleverly intertwined the past and present in a story that never slackens it's pace or it's grip on this reader.