Review: This-could-happen immediacy; a wonderful horror/thirller
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 01 26, 2013
Review of Dinosaur Lake by Kathryn Meyer Griffith5 starsI received a complimentary copy in return for my provision of a fair and honest review.I found this novel to be really terrifying: author Kathryn Meyer Griffith has the gift of making the implausible and the impossible seem not only possible, but actual fact. The twist she puts upon the prehistoric creature (and reader, you will know exactly what I mean as you read the story; I'm not giving it away) brings that aura of implacability which is so essential to good horror. If you can believe that one day the Yellowstone Volcano might super-erupt, you can certainly believe the premise of "Dinosaur Lake." Just because it hasn't occurred yet doesn't mean "never."In Crater Lake National Park in Oregon, near Klamath Falls, are tens of thousands of mostly untouched acreage, wild and free, inhabited by all sorts of animals, forested, and beautifully scenic. The volcanic lake formed inside a caldera, and has been stocked for fishing; it's also a popular site for tourists to take boat tours. It's certainly become home over the past eight years to Chief Ranger Henry, his journalist wife Ann, their adult daughter Laura and toddler granddaughter Phoebe. But trouble looms on the horizon: a series of earthquakes commences; a wall of dinosaur fossils is uncovered, bringing in paleontologists to excavate; the fish in the lake disappear; the lake is heating up, indicating subterranean lava flow; and now, boat captains have also begun to disappear, and tourists and rangers both spot tracks near the lake, and something in the water that is far too enormous to be a fish of any sort.I really could not put this book aside till I had raced to the end to find out who wins--humanity or prehistory. It's very skillfully written, with good characterizations as well as a thriller of a plot.