You can't accuse Alex Scarrow of fearing the big theme. Last time around, in Last Light one of the most under-rated thrillers of 2007, he took on "Peak Oil" and the destruction of civilisation as we know it.
In 2008, a US Presidential election year for anyone living under a rock, he takes on the story of a group of lost nineteenth century settlers in the mountains of the western United States, and their influence on a modern US Presidential election. Throw in some religious fundamentalism, a touch of conspiracy and something of the supernatural and you have enough themes to support three novels.
The set-up of October Skies is excellent. In 2008, reality film-maker Julian Cooke stumbles across the story of a lifetime: the untouched remains of a camp deep in the forested mountains of Wyoming. When Cooke also finds the vivid but incomplete diary detailing why the camp is there he quickly realises he has the extraordinary story of a lost group of settlers who are defeated by the merciless weather of the west as they follow the Oregon trail to the riches and freedom of the west coast.
Intertwined with Cooke's attempts to use the story to revive his flagging career, is the 1856 narrative of Dr Ben Lambert, the diarist in question. Lambert, an English gentlemen, is travelling the Oregon trail in an attempt to find an adventure that will allow him to turn his back on his medical career for one as a writer. He joins a party of settlers that leave the last outpost somewhat late in the autumn for the gruelling trek, risking the wrath of the weather gods who, along with understandably hostile natives, determine whether or not travellers cross the mountain in time.
Lambert's party is in fact two parties: one splinter group of Mormoms leaving the restrictions of that nascent religion under the influence of a charismatic leader promising them redemption in the west; the other is a party made of a disparate group of families simply seeking a new life.
As an early winter takes its grip of the unforgiving terrain, the two groups quickly fall into an uneasy truce governed by mutual suspicion which keeps them apart across different sides of the dwindling supplies of food sitting in the middle of their makeshift, inadequate camp. When a member of the religious group is found brutally murdered the truce quickly breaks down into something more sinister and dangerous.
So far, so good. Scarrow brilliantly brings to life the mountains and the desperation of a battle to survive the onslaught of winter. Some, predictably, lose their moral compass quickly without the structures of civilisation to keep them in check, others behave heroically.
He also paints a nice portait of a journalist scrambling around to keep his exclusive and find a way to bring his story to the widest audience (and at the highest price, both in terms of dollars and for his reputation.
The first two thirds of the book I enjoyed enormously, and indeed the 1856 narrative of the latter third, where the combination of madness, megalomania and religious fervour provoke a violent finale.
But back in 2008 the story unravels into a fairly unconvincing scenario and it seemed at times as if Scarrow was too keen have the two endings mirror one another,which was a pity because it just took a little gloss off what otherwise was a great read.
Reflecting on that, and indeed Last Light, I wonder whether the author, a brilliant, vivid storyteller has just a little too much imagination.