Galen Watson's Blog: The Psalter - Posts Tagged "snowboarding"

Powder Burn by Mark Chisnell

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A broke, fledgling writer on the verge of returning to her small-town journalist job; an experienced climber and expedition leader; a hot-tempered, adrenaline-addicted snowboarder; a videographer on the verge of bankruptcy--these are the disparate characters that Mark Chisnell has assembled in his Action/ Adventure novel, Powder Burn. What might be an otherwise pure adventure read is spiced up by the mysterious location of the mountain extreme snowboarder,Vegas, plans to conquer; and journalist, Sam (short for Samantha), hopes to publicize, provided she can sell the story.

The intrigue deepens in a separate story line as two other characters flee a fictional, recently occupied Himalayan country, with a mysterious and fabled sword. As the opening chapters progress, the reader suspects, thanks to excellent foreshadowing, that the fate of these two groups is intertwined.

The prose is fluid, visual, and authentic. I could fairly feel my lungs pumping as the characters lug backpacks and gear up a merciless mountain. Author Chisnell created complicated personalities; and the conflicts between them add texture to the story. The characterization of the snowboarder subculture is superb in both their anti-establishment personalities and hip dialogue. I was impressed with the British writer’s technical knowledge, as well as his handling of Yankee vernacular and colloquialisms. The attention to detail puts the reader on the mountain and in every white-knuckle episode as the adventurers race to the shocking secret of the sword and its master.

The story has all the thrills of other climbing/thriller adventures, and I kept imagining Trevanians’s Eiger Sanction meets Toshiro Mifuni in Red Sun. Get out your backpack, rest your head on it next to the fire, and vicariously enjoy an adventure that will leave you panting to get into the mountains.




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