Quintana Roo

by Gary Brandner

John Hooker risks his life to aid Connie Braithwaite in her search for her wealthy husband, who disappeared on an expedition in the Yucatan jungle

Genres: Horror

251 pages, Paperback

First published January 12, 1984

About the author

Gary Phil Brandner (May 31, 1930 – September 22, 2013) was an American horror author best known for his werewolf themed trilogy of novels, The Howling. The first book in the series was loosely adapted as a motion picture in 1981. Brandner's second and third Howling novels, published in 1979 and 1985 respectively, have no connection to the film series, though he was involved in writing the screenplay for the second Howling film, Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf. The fourth film in the Howling series, Howling IV: The Original Nightmare, is actually the closest adaptation of Brandner's original novel, though this too varies to some degree.

Brandner's novel Walkers was adapted and filmed for television as From The Dead Of Night. He also wrote the screenplay for the 1988 horror film Cameron's Closet.

Born in the Midwest and much traveled during his formative years, Brandner published more than 30 novels, over 100 short stories, and also wrote a handful of screenplays. He attended college at the University of Washington where he was a member of Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity. After graduating in 1955, he worked as an amateur boxer, bartender, surveyor, loan company investigator, advertising copywriter, and technical writer before turning to fiction writing. Brandner lived with his wife, Martine Wood Brandner, and several cats in Reno, Nevada.

He died of esophageal cancer in 2013.

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a story! Indiana Jones meets John Hooker. Connie Braithwaits husband is missing in the jungle of Yucatan. His plane crashed. Can John Hooker help her and rescue Nolan Braithwaite? What about Buzz Kaplan, a friend of Hooker, who accompanied Braithwait? The story becomes very weird when they discover an old Mayan town. Why is it so well preserved? The Mayan king plans something evil with them. Can they escape and return to Veracruz? This book was very fast paced, entertaining and it had it's fair share of horror (the muerateros, zombie like creatures under the spell of the Mayan King). Great blast from the past I can highly recommend. Kind of Indiana Jones like adventure with more nasty details and every cliche you imagine. Really recommended!

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quintana Roo is Brandner book number four in my Brandner reading overload and this does not include The Howling Trilogy.

I loved the plot summary. During the first years of WWII, our main fella is hired by the wife of a successful businessman to find out what happened to him when his plane crashed in Quintana Roo. A jungle that no one dares to enter. A jungle that is full of mysterious going ons and myths that scare everyone. A jungle full of horror. Excellent!

The book starts off well as we learn all about our characters and the myths that surround this jungle. The undead, one of many horrors from QR make an early appearance and the tension builds as our characters head towards the unknown.

The TV show "Lost" ( I love Lost) kept coming to mind as our characters find the crashed plane deep in the jungle and the Mayans (The Others from Lost?) make themselves known as the people in control of this mysterious jungle. The Mayans take our characters to their civilisation with more horror to be revealed.

It does take a while to get to this part of the book but once there I expected the horror to kick in. There are a few gory scenes but the undead don't make much of an appearance any more and the Mayans are not a secret long lost civilisation of evil. The Nazis then make an appearance and the secrets of QR are revealed. Not particularly horrific or evil.

There were too many players in this book. The Undead, then the Mayans, then the Nazis. The book did not flow from one to the other. It felt like they were being thrown at our QR explorers one after the other.

I did enjoy reading the book but it could have been so much better if it focused on one element. Maybe my expectations were to high. Not as good as I thought it would be. It just did not float my u-boat.

[Mike Wallace · Rating 2 out of 5]

I usually love Bradner novels, but this one should have stayed in the desk.

[Reevrb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was going to give a 4 star rating until they met up with the germans...really??

[TheCultureVulture · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 - Serviceable enough 80's adventure tale with horror elements. Some of the content feels, unsurprisingly, a bit dated.