The Call of the Mountain

by Sam Neumann

Deep in the mountains of Colorado, Julian Meyer has escaped his life. The car horns are gone, the suffocating city is gone, and the Wall Street high rise and everything that came with it is gone. The wife is gone. The misery is gone.

He went west to escape a life he hated, and Julian Meyer found solace in the tiny mountain town of Otter Ridge. The pace is slower, the skies are blue, and the mornings are quiet. Julian Meyer can finally relax.

But amidst the detached serenity, there’s evil in those hills. A chaotic web of deceit, corruption, and seduction slowly steals him from the beauty of his surroundings and pushes him into a perverse game in which there is no winner.

The Call of the Mountain is a fast-paced thriller that thrusts the reader square in the middle of mountain life, exploring the depths of greed and obsession and telling the story of one little town with a dangerous addiction.

Genres: Thriller, Fiction

335 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 21, 2015

About the author

Sam is the author of three books and many blog posts, all of which can be found at SamNeumann.

Reviews

[Shelby *trains flying monkeys* · Rating 3 out of 5]

Julian Meyer wakes up one day and decides he is done with his life. He remembers a childhood dream of a photo of the Colorado mountains he saw as a kid and says "heck with it". He quits his job as a Wall Street financial manager, just leaves his trophy wife, and heads west.


Julian heads to Colorado, and crashes at his cousin's place. He is taking hikes, soaking up the peace and quiet.
Then he meets her...and of course follows his wanker. He is brought into the nearby mountain community. Where the life is good and the living is easy.

We're supporting a community here. We're allowing people to live their lives in freedom. We're providing for many. We've created a community free of oppression.

He loves the living in the mountain part and heck with that pesky wife back home, he moves closer to the woman he is banging. She takes him to "soirees" and little get togethers that relax him. This is the life he wanted.


Then the girl's friend Vince offers Julian a job. Just driving. No questions asked. Pays good money. Julian, being the genius that he is takes him up on it.


So to top things off what does Julian do? Starts banging the boss man's girlfriend too.


This guy, for being a supposed Wall Street pro is really, awfully dumb.

So what exactly are they transporting in those driving jobs? If it had been my mountains (Appalachian) it would have been meth but alas.
Once Julian gets himself in a bit deeper than he wants too (because he is stupid) he gets taken aside by Vince and made an offer.


Now for the verdict. Sam Neumann's writing is not bad. It flows and kept my attention. There was just predictability to the story that distracted me. Then the main character. You just can't be that dumb and live.
2.5 stars rounded up.

Mountains've had drug problems since the dawn of time. This place in no different. Something about the isolation, I think.

Book source: Netgalley in exchange for review.

[Carol Kean · Rating 5 out of 5]

-Escape the rat race
-Kiss the corporate world goodbye
-Live free in the Rockies with cool, quasi-hippie people
-Enjoy the slow-paced, scenic mountain community
-Make easy money to pay the rent
-What's wrong with this picture?

Julian Meyer quits his office job in Manhattan, drives west to the Rockies of his childhood dream, and finds peace--but not for long. The remoteness of a small, slow-paced mountain town attracts bad people whose business is more soul-destroying than corporate work.

Other readers complain that Julian is an idiot, and I don't dispute that, but if not for human folly, we'd have no novels, operas, plays like Romeo and Juliet, movies full of stupid people getting killed, and heart-breaking love songs about people wishing for second chances. The Call of the Mountain is spot-on in its portrayal of office workers in the big city versus the quintessential Americans in the great open spaces of the West, with a "live free or die" mentality (never mind that this is the motto of New Hampshire, as far east as a state can get).

There's so much I want to say about this story, so many epic lines I highlighted via my Kindle and want to share, but avoiding spoilers is such a challenge. Let's just say this is a great, great story with a "Breaking Bad" sort of theme, a timeless classic, insightful, tightly plotted, taut with suspense, and yet literary, with no exploding helicopters or other gimmicks that make me avoid the thriller genre.

Yes, we wince and cringe as Julian makes one stupid decision after another, ignoring his intuition and better judgment, because that's how temptation works. We rationalize. We believe what we want to believe. That hot babe cannot be denied, no matter what the consequences may be, never mind that the wife back in Manhattan hasn't even filed for divorce yet. That guy Vince is a little shady, but hey, these people are living the good life, unlike the working stiffs slaving for corporations and paying ridiculous bills and taxes.

This novel delivers a message without ever coming across as didactic. Well written, accurate, authentic, all too believable, and tragic - though there is hope and we know from the narrative style that Julian has lived to tell this tale years after it happened. We don't know if he returns to his wife but we do know he learned a lesson, and that alone would be worth 5 stars to me. This is the rare book that I love so much, I'm buying copies for my friends.

[Jolene Ko · Rating 4 out of 5]

Money, power and greed can be found anywhere

How the story starts out is really interesting because some guy decides to leave his life in New York as a financial analyst behind and also his wife, who has been accustomed to his wealth without the desire to have her own career.

Although an interesting premise, I feel as though this story has been done before - think “the beach” staring Leonard DiCaprio, where he stubble upon an isolated community growing cannabis where there is also a leader.

Because of this “community” Julian starts a fling with Suzanna. Although he has never put a label on what they were having, I don’t even think it was a relationship, more like a companionship. Then starts secret fling with someone else who he finds more attractive than Suzanna.

Anyways as the story pans out it becomes predictable Julian tries to get himself out of his predicament - perhaps the thin mountain air contributed to his naivety? Who knows.

I was a bit sad how it ended with the rookie cop Michael, perhaps he is deserving of his own story?

[Uwe · Rating 2 out of 5]

A financial analyst is leaving his life, wife, job and drives from New York into the mountains because he read a magazine when he was a kid. He wants to be free ...... He ends up to be involved in a criminal organisation without realizing it what makes it a very silly story. After getting involved he gets to the truth, gets antsy and in the end he shoots his boss together with a police officer who is on a desk job who wants justice for the mountains. He ends up in jail, the analyst goes back to New York and the story ends with it .............
Very very silly story with very very unbelievable behaviour!

[Frank · Rating 3 out of 5]

To be fair, this book is fairly well written but it doesn’t s a dark story that will not leave you with a good feeling. Julian Meyer makes good money in his job but works longs hours and flees New York, a nagging wife and winds up in Eagle, Colorado near Denver. He winds up working for a drug lord and soon desires to flee again. He and a policeman friend finally confront his drug boss and he survives a shootout. The story finishes with him fleeing back east. This story is dark, has little or no redeeming qualities and I question as to why I even finished it.

[fred shaffer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great summer read!

A very exciting book start to end! Fast page turned and I couldn't put it down. A smart hero and a very calm and guy! Would highly recommend!

[Meyers Cooper Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I started reading The Call of the Mountain, I had finished Les Miserables. I was looking for a lighter read, and I didn't want to into a book with any expectations. I felt drawn into this story within the first several chapters. As the plot progressed, I could make some assumptions. I definitely thought that things were building up to an cult mentality and the drug cartel ring. With an obsessive following to the show Dateline, I felt that some parts of the story could have been a part of their show. I loved that aspect! This was a quick read with suspense and surprises. I liked the closure with Suzanne and Adeline, especially since I was expecting that they had been planning this scheme from the beginning as a way to leave the mountains with the money. I even thought that maybe, just maybe, Mchael was a part of it too. I thought maybe he was involved with Suzanne, and the visit to Julian's to tell her story was a catalyst to getting Julian involved with the downfall of the operation. I enjoyed that I was able to create so many possible scenarios in my mind as I was reading and still be surprised at the end. A negative to the book may be that some of the characters felt a little flat. I would have enjoyed a little more character development. I would also love to know what was inside Suzanne's locket. I don't know why but every time it was mentioned in the book I kept wondering what she kept in it. Was it a picture of a family member, a lover, a lost child? I guess I will file it away as an unsolved mystery of the mountain.

Book Source: Net Galley in exchange for a review

[Sarah Pearce · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was glued to this book for the first half. Nothing a like a road trip after chucking away a miserable life in the big city to go to Colorado. Ah...yeah...it sucks you in right from the get go. And you want this guy to succeed. You're almost convinced he will succeed. Thinking back on the book [and it's the kind of book you will think about long after you read it], the main character just couldn't quite kick the money thing. And I wanted him to...but, you know, I think the story needed him to fail a bit. Fail he does and by the second half of the book, you want to slap him upside his head. At this point, some of the plot falters a bit and borders on unbelievable. You will say it, I swear you will: "Can anybody be that naive?" The writing is very good and while some of the characters were a little meh..I think that is how the writer wanted us to feel. You just can't run away from meh people is probably the overriding message here. Job accomplished. It's a good read. Check it out!

[Lynn Daniels · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really loved this book. There were elements in the book that certainly fit the modern landscape of this world and there were things that force the reader to think about making huge life-changing decisions, morality, and assessing one's true level of sanity in what can be described as a mindless and insane world. I came away from it asking if the main character truly deserved to have the conclusion he ended up with. It is a good question to have because I think that people will come up with different conclusions based on their overall perception of the main character.

[Kay Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this book because I've spent four years living near Boulder and constantly driving up into the mountains for one reason or another. I absolutely loved going back there through Sam's narrative. It's a good story but I found it to be slow-moving. It wasn't necessarily suspenseful and at times was totally predictable. Full disclosure, I received this book gratis from NetGalley.

[Kathleen Gray · Rating 4 out of 5]

thanks, NETGALLEY for the ARC.