Road of Bones by Christopher Golden

Make no bones about it, antlers and snow have never been more terrifying.
Road of Bones invites you to take an unforgettable ride through the forbidding wilderness of Siberia. And no, just because there are actual paved roads there it doesn’t make it any more inviting or welcoming. And yet the legendary road along the Kolyma is exactly where two longtime friends Tieg and Prentiss are headed, seeking fame and fortune, or at least a someversion there off.
It’s Tieg’s idea, one of the many ideas which over the years have made and often cost him and his friends money. Tieg’s an optimist, always on lookout for the next great story to make a documentary out of and he believes he found it here, in the snowed in remoteness of Siberia. The place is, of course, beyond haunted, with something like 600 000 people buried along it and beneath it, dead while laboring under Stalin’s imperative to create the great road. But what is such superstition to the cynical seen it all pair of first world adventurers.
And so off they go. And that’s where the novel’s first scene finds them. Nearly careening off to certain death. Regaining control, they finally arrive to meet their local guide and proceed to their destination, a tiny town at the end of the world, but once they arrive there, they find all its denizens gone, all but one small girl. And there’s something hungry out there after her, after them.
Time to get heroic, especially for Tieg, who has never gotten over his baby sister being abducted and murdered while on his watch, when they were both kids. For Prentiss and a local woman they pick up along the way, it’s more of an along for the ride sort of thing. And what a ride, the frying pan into the fire nightmarish trajectory through the snowed in place where every single thing, natural and otherwise, is trying to kill them.
At first it seemed like it might be too action forward of a story for me, but it quickly settled into proper and more measured psychological frights and turned out into an excellent production overall. Don’t know why I don’t read more of this guy. The writing’s really good, very dynamic, very vivid, has a certain cinematic quality to it, all while maintaining the appropriately bleak atmosphere and tone. Loved the use of real life events and local culture, customs and mythology. It’s Siberia, people… it doesn’t need a sign saying Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate. It’s understood. Didn’t quite help with surviving the latest heating wave, but certainly distracted from it. A Great fun read. A well crafted literary supernatural thriller.Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.