What do you think?
Rate this book
Gideon Thorn #4
Mountain Devils: A Weird Western
From deep in the forest comes a howl… and the hunt begins.
Gideon Thorn’s search for the thing that destroyed his family leads him to California’s deep forests, where loggers are being torn apart by something primal.
Suspicions center on the Omah—part legend, part monster.
Thorn joins an expedition of opportunists, scientists, and showmen to track the beast. But as clues mount—strategic attacks, eerie wood-knocks, even telepathic contact—it becomes the Omah are real. And they’re fighting back.
As the body count rises, Thorn must choose sides in a war between greed and nature—while the mystery of his past still waits in the shadows.
Mountain Devils is a thrilling blend of western adventure, cryptic horror, and environmental reckoning—where every tree hides a secret, and not every monster walks on two legs.
Gideon Thorn’s search for the thing that destroyed his family leads him to California’s deep forests, where loggers are being torn apart by something primal.
Suspicions center on the Omah—part legend, part monster.
Thorn joins an expedition of opportunists, scientists, and showmen to track the beast. But as clues mount—strategic attacks, eerie wood-knocks, even telepathic contact—it becomes the Omah are real. And they’re fighting back.
As the body count rises, Thorn must choose sides in a war between greed and nature—while the mystery of his past still waits in the shadows.
Mountain Devils is a thrilling blend of western adventure, cryptic horror, and environmental reckoning—where every tree hides a secret, and not every monster walks on two legs.
212 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 2, 2025
17 people are currently reading
11 people want to read
About the author
Michael Newton
468 books104 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
From Wikipedia:
"Michael Newton (born 1951) is an American author best known for his work on Don Pendleton's Mack Bolan series. Newton first began work on the Executioner series by co-writing "The Executioner's War Book" with Don Pendleton in 1977. Since then he has been a steady writer for the series with almost 90 entries to his credit, which triples the amount written by creator Don Pendleton. His skills and knowledge of the series have allowed him to be picked by the publishers to write the milestone novels such as #100, #200, and #300.
Writing under the pseudonym Lyle Brandt, Michael Newton has also become a popular writer of Western novels. He has written a number of successful non-fiction titles as well, including a book on genre writing (How to Write Action Adventure Novels). His book Invisible Empire: The Ku Klux Klan in Florida won the Florida Historical Society's 2002 Rembert Patrick Award for Best Book in Florida History. Newton's "Encyclopedia of Cryptozoology" won the American Library Association's award for Outstanding Reference Work in 2006."
Pen names: Lyle Brandt, Don Pendleton, Jack Buchanan
Bibiliography available here.
From Wikipedia:
"Michael Newton (born 1951) is an American author best known for his work on Don Pendleton's Mack Bolan series. Newton first began work on the Executioner series by co-writing "The Executioner's War Book" with Don Pendleton in 1977. Since then he has been a steady writer for the series with almost 90 entries to his credit, which triples the amount written by creator Don Pendleton. His skills and knowledge of the series have allowed him to be picked by the publishers to write the milestone novels such as #100, #200, and #300.
Writing under the pseudonym Lyle Brandt, Michael Newton has also become a popular writer of Western novels. He has written a number of successful non-fiction titles as well, including a book on genre writing (How to Write Action Adventure Novels). His book Invisible Empire: The Ku Klux Klan in Florida won the Florida Historical Society's 2002 Rembert Patrick Award for Best Book in Florida History. Newton's "Encyclopedia of Cryptozoology" won the American Library Association's award for Outstanding Reference Work in 2006."
Pen names: Lyle Brandt, Don Pendleton, Jack Buchanan
Bibiliography available here.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 14, 2022
The fourth volume in the Gideon Thorne series
Michael Newton's weird westerns are usually. entertaining. This one is no exception. However it is quite heavy on Indians as good stewards of nature, living in harmony with their surroundings and using natural resources wisely. The tribe in this book also strives to protect nature from the greedy white men. Destructive dispoilers of nature they deserve whatever happens to them including being torn apart by...monsters? Mountain Devils? a previously unclassified animal? I wonder who the author considers to be mountain devils? The monsters/beasts or the evil white men? Maybe both.
This "noble savage" - evil white man theme is repeated throughout the book. It gets old really fast.
Here is a quote from Wikipedia about the noble savage theory: "A noble savage is a literary stock character who embodies the concept of the indigene, outsider, wild human, an "other" who has not been "corrupted" by civilization, and therefore symbolizes humanity's innate goodness. Besides appearing in many works of fiction and philosophy, the stereotype was also heavily employed in early anthropological works."
There is also a good online entry at Britannica.
Contrary to what many believe, this concept did not originate with Rousseau but can be dated back to the ancient Greeks. One major flaw is the idea that civilization has corrupted the innate goodness of humanity. No. Humanity was corrupted in the Garden of Eden. It cannot be redeemed by nature.
Michael Newton's weird westerns are usually. entertaining. This one is no exception. However it is quite heavy on Indians as good stewards of nature, living in harmony with their surroundings and using natural resources wisely. The tribe in this book also strives to protect nature from the greedy white men. Destructive dispoilers of nature they deserve whatever happens to them including being torn apart by...monsters? Mountain Devils? a previously unclassified animal? I wonder who the author considers to be mountain devils? The monsters/beasts or the evil white men? Maybe both.
This "noble savage" - evil white man theme is repeated throughout the book. It gets old really fast.
Here is a quote from Wikipedia about the noble savage theory: "A noble savage is a literary stock character who embodies the concept of the indigene, outsider, wild human, an "other" who has not been "corrupted" by civilization, and therefore symbolizes humanity's innate goodness. Besides appearing in many works of fiction and philosophy, the stereotype was also heavily employed in early anthropological works."
There is also a good online entry at Britannica.
Contrary to what many believe, this concept did not originate with Rousseau but can be dated back to the ancient Greeks. One major flaw is the idea that civilization has corrupted the innate goodness of humanity. No. Humanity was corrupted in the Garden of Eden. It cannot be redeemed by nature.
June 22, 2020
very good book..Gideon Thorne was great...hope to have more of the same coming
August 24, 2016
Good
I enjoyed the book a lot it was full action through out the whole story it kept my interest through. Out
I enjoyed the book a lot it was full action through out the whole story it kept my interest through. Out
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews