If you’re looking for a book that feels more like a movie, “Warning Signs” may be just the ticket.
The visual terrain of Tracy Sierra’s adventure novel is so vivid that it’s easy to picture it on a big screen. Sierra’s follow-up to the riveting “Nightwatching” is set atop a mountain and in a nearby cabin, where a handful of men and two boys have planned a ski vacation with a hidden agenda: Bram, a shady venture capitalist, intends to indulge the other men in an exciting skiing vacation while also hitting them up for investments.
Bram’s shy, resourceful son Zach, 12, is the main character in “Warning Signs,” and the key to its appeal. Zach’s mom recently died and he was closer to her than to his dad (she taught him everything he knows about skiing and mountain survival).
Zach’s wariness of his tough-talking father, who presents many reasons to be wary, his deep knowledge of how mountains and avalanches work and his continuing grief because of the loss of his mother all play into how “Warning Signs” unfolds, as the adults make risky choices and disaster, inevitably, ensues.
“Nightwatching” was such a big hit that Sierra deserves credit for trying something new with her second thriller, even if it’s not quite as successful. She easily could have written another book that built tension from claustrophobia — “Nightwatching” was about a woman trying to protect her kids from intruders in their home, where most of the book took place. Instead, she did the opposite. She has found the fear factor in a wide-open space.
Mostly, it works. Sierra knows a lot about skiing and about avalanches, which are a constant threat in the book. The characters can see for miles as they slalom down mountaintops, but what they can’t see are the fault lines and crevasses that could make the ground beneath them collapse at any moment. The exception is Zach, whose late mom taught him well how to “read” the appearance of snow on a mountain for signs of danger.
There is lots of danger in “Warning Signs.” Probably too much. The threat of natural disaster, coupled with the violent secrets being kept by the adults on the ski trip, would be plenty for any book. But Sierra gilds the snow lily with a few too many red herrings: a shadowy creature that Zach believes is some kind of monster, a missing woman, furtive talk of murder, and “The Shining”-like descriptions of Bram as a person whose malevolent shadow personality always threatens to take over.
With the snowy setting and a climax that pits a child against his increasingly manic father, there are several echoes of Stephen King’s “The Shining.” And, as in “The Shining,” our youthful protagonist has a superpower that could save the day — although, unlike Danny’s supernatural gift in “The Shining,” this “power” is easy to relate to because any of us could acquire it if we took a course in avalanche awareness. Like many an appealing hero, Zach also has this up his sleeve: He’s constantly underestimated by the people around him.
