Hell's Gate

by Stephen W. Frey

It’s fire season in Montana . . .

A disillusioned litigator forges a new life in Big Sky Country and stumbles onto the toughest case of his career in this electrifying thriller from New York Times bestselling author Stephen Frey.

When lawyer Hunter Lee decides to turn his back on the New York City rat race that has made him rich but cost him his marriage, he escapes to beautiful but isolated Fort Mason, Montana. He befriends a Fire Jumper—one of an elite corps of firefighters—and gets a terrifying firsthand look at vast tracts of forest being reduced to ash in seconds. In this tiny town where everyone seems to have a secret, Hunter suspects these fires are anything but accidental. As he follows his instincts, Montana becomes a crucible where good and evil collide—and where one man, running from his past, must expose the guilty before he’s sacrificed to the inferno.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Suspense, Audiobook, Legal Thriller

480 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published August 1, 2009

About the author

For the last 15 years I’ve been lucky enough to be a novelist. Until recently the books were set in the worlds of Wall Street and Washington. In addition to writing, I’ve also had a career in finance with specialties including merger & acquisition advisory and private equity at firms like J.P. Morgan in New York City and Winston Partners just outside D.C. in northern Virginia.

So, it seemed natural to write about those two worlds and, fortunately, the publishing industry agreed. My first book was published in 1995, The Takeover; about a secret group of men who were trying to destroy the U.S. monetary system by engineering a massive corporate takeover. I have followed The Takeover with 13 more novels all set in high-level finance and national politics.

Recently, I decided to alter the theme. The novels will still have a financial focus, but Wall Street won’t be the backdrop. We’ll get out into the world more. And there will be a man versus nature element for the hero in every novel. Hell’s Gate, available August 2009, is set in Montana and involves forest fires and why many of them start.

I live in southwest Florida with my wife, Diana, and we have since 2004 after moving down here from northern Virginia. Given the new direction of my books, it seems like a hurricane ought to make an appearance in a novel sometime soon.

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Who is starting fires in Montana and why? A hot shot NY lawyer wins a big lawsuit in Montana and moves there. There is a lot going on in this story w/a lot of characters but nothing is grabbing me and I am having trouble getting thru this relatively short book.

[Una Tiers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good end of chapter cliffhangers. A plot that was hard to follow. Good court room scene, but only one. The treachery of lawyers, and people in general was exposed. The author assigns the female characters rather insignificant roles and wee voices.

[Caleb · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is Frey’s best writing!

[Kristi Samber · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was mildly entertaining but the ending was a disappointment.

[JBradford · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this book. The supposed main character actually turns out to be fairly secondary, while a secondary character becomes more featured. Moreover, the philosophical views of who's in charge in our society turn out to be more dismal than I want to believe. But the real problem (to me) is that the two great romances in the book don't turn out the way I want them to.
The presumed protagonist is a 25-year-old lawyer from New York City, who is sent out to the boondocks in Montana to win a lawsuit, which he does quite easily--but he does it not so much on the basis of his wonderful legal talents (which we hardly ever get to see, except when he decides to leave the firm at which he has worked since graduating from laws school) but because someone slipped him a crucial bit of evidence. For reasons that aren't quite clear, he decides to move to Montana, where he meets an unusual woman from California. Meanwhile, there's a parallel story involving the supervisor of a fire-fighting team, who becomes involved almost against his will with a young lady who has just joined his outfit.
It's a good story, providing a lot of insight into legal shenanigans and the art of fire-fighting in the western woods, although unbelievable enough in both areas not to be acceptable. Hey--I stayed up very late reading it; what more can an author ask?

[Caitlin · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of my former bosses was a smoke jumper at one time in his past. He jumped out of planes to fight fires in the Idaho area and later led crews throughout fire season. He was a pretty interesting guy and told great stories about his adventures in a really laconic way. I thought of him when I picked this book up.

All the elements of a good thriller were here - Montana, smoke jumpers, mysterious fires burning down Montana, untimely deaths, suspicious business and political doings, but for me it just didn't come together. The plotting was just okay. The setting is lovely and a story centered around smoke jumpers would be pretty cool (only this isn't that). There's a lot of testosterone, lots of men being manly in a manly world doing manly deeds. The characterization here is shallow enough that if you were to scrape it with your fingernail you'd just come up with a little dirt under the nail.

I was trying to decide while I was reading this what about it wasn't working for me. I thought and thought and then it hit me! This is the male equivalent of a Harlequin romance - a Harlequin bromance, if you will.

[Gayle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh this book was soooo disappointing to me. It really wasn't THAT bad, but it certainly wasn't what I was expecting. Sort of like having your mouth all set for chocolate ice cream and then getting pickles instead. I thought it was going to be about smoke jumpers and it was, but only marginally. Mostly it was about high-powered business men trying to defraud government contracts. I didn't even read the teaser for the next book by this author at the end. :-(

[Kay · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's hard for me to rate this book. I am a Frey fan and this book has a fairly good plot with interesting characters, but I found the 'wilderness' setting of Montana not as appealing as the 'city' settings. I live in the forest [as my grandson calls it] so I enjoy books that take place in NYC, DC, LA, Chicago, Boston or any other major city. No, I don't want to move to any city after living in Houston, but I do like the big city 'action'.

[Lynne · Rating 1 out of 5]

Books start out at three stars for me and move up or down as appropriate. This one lost one star for the writing (and misogyny)and another star for the grizzly attack scene. It was totally disconnected from the main plot and served only to show us that the lawyer is not a wimp.

[Dirk Westercamp · Rating 2 out of 5]

Like Frey but stopped this book 3/4 through. Not his best work

[Lena · Rating 3 out of 5]

2017

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have read a number of Stephen Frey novels, but not lately.. the author runs a private equity firm in Florida and the books I have previously read all have been along the theme of very smart but young guy who is swept up in the world of high finance and shadowy corners.
Hell’s Gate is the story of a NY lawyer at a prestigious firm churning out the work.
He is asked to represent victims of a railroad accident in Fort Mason Montana.
He wins the case and as he leaves the courtroom in Bozeman, MT, he is served with divorce papers. His life is pretty compartmentalized until it isn’t.

[Ashley Harrison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Could have been worse, good storyline eventually. Really dislike the way it jumps around though. Some times it was the perfect lead into the story others it ended up being a dead end. But it could have been better written. I have read worse though not something I would recommend.

[Ferne (Enthusiastic Reader) · Rating 3 out of 5]

One different aspect of this novel is the view of going through a divorce from the male perspective.

After all of the wildfires of the past year (2018), this was a particularly interesting novel to read and definitely elevates respect for all smokejumpers who dedicate their lives to fighting wildfires.

[Juliana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Vaguely interesting story. A bit dry but my main qualm was his descriptions of women. They were either hot or old or both. Not juvenile or obscene necessarily, just flat and unskilled.

[Sara Herring · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was okay to me.

[Tricia Emerson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Slow start, the plot didn’t hook until about 3/4 of the way through. Overall good plot idea, but light on character development.

[Mike]

Sept 2018

[Todd Schafer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Get the defendant thinking highly of himself, boasting of exact stats, and then coming back to say , "how can you not kow that? Great lawyerly tactic.

Interesting grammar point: people in Montana say "out East" as opposed to "back East." And yes, I am nerdly enough to find this amusing.

One was to wonder with all the wildfires that California suffers from on a regular basis if all these fires are indeed caused by lightning and wandering vagrants. One suspects a more sinister source.

[TaQuanda Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

So good.

[Persephone · Rating 2 out of 5]

I usually read books a lot faster, but this one took me for ever to finish it (not to mention I felt like giving up sometimes) because it just couldn't keep my attention grasped. I have ADHD, so for me to finish a book, it has to really engulf me and I don't feel this book did that. The plot and the story were good: it was intriguing and you did want to find out more and who did it, but I had a problem with how the story was told. Frey told the story from the perspective of various characters, which is fine, but it would annoy me that every time it was actually getting interesting (he would spend too much time talking about fly fishing and of some small detail or another that didn't have much to do with the plot), he would cut the chapter (each character's perspective was a chapter; sometimes the "chapter" was just one paragraph) and then start with something else. For example, a chapter was told from the main character's, Hunter, perspective and when it was getting interesting, he would jump and start a completely different story told by, say his brother. This became frustrating to me because I felt the story never evolved, because he would always cut and jump to something completely different every time it was. I love suspense and cliff hangers, that's what keeps you hooked and wanting to know more, but dude! Tone it down! Like I said before, I almost gave up reading the book, but I had made the promise that I would never do that again. That I will finish a book no matter what. And so I forced myself into doing that with this book, but, at the same time, I was usually just bored or mad at it. And that is why I didn't give it anymore stars.

[Crystal · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Stephen Frey's Christian Gilette series and ever since I read the first one of those, I have picked up all of his new books to read and I am working on his backlist.

Hell's Gate is a departure from the business world in a way and in a way it's not. It is because the main characters are not in big business. Hunter is a big-city lawyer out for trial in Big Sky Country and stays to visit his brother. While there he learns from his brother and his brother's friend Paul that numerous forest fires have been popping up the Pacific Northwest and they feel they have been started on purpose. But the problem is there are several people in Fort Mason, Montana that could be behind it. That is where the business world comes in. All the people it could be are involved in some way in a business that could prosper by the setting of the fires. It's up to Paul and Hunter to figure out who the perpetrator is before it's too late.

What follows in this book is a great thrill ride. I never quite knew who it would be since great reasons were brought up for each one and each seemed suspicious in their actions. Frey did a great job setting up the plot and executing it. My only problem is I wish there was a little more at the end. It seems things were tidied up and ended in a hurry and I could have learned a lot more. But all-in-all it was a great book and the characters are ones I would love to learn more about.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Being from Montana, it was fun to listen to a book that had places I knew very well featured in the story. It was also humorous to note the fictitious places and the places that were fictitious but based on a real place. It was also fun to recognize some of the main fictitious characters who happened to have similar stories as major "players" in Montana. As with most business dealings in Montana, there are alliances and deceptions woven together at high levels, making the real story difficult to figure out.

Oh yea, not every Montanan carries or owns a gun! Although hunting is almost a religion there.

[Bernie Charbonneau · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having read most of Stephen Frey's books and enjoying the novels that preceded the "Gillette" series of novels I was looking forward to this book because it didn't include the Gillette character. Not that I didn't like the books but I wanted something different from Mr. Frey. I enjoyed his quick read Forced Out and this falls in the same category. Good characters that you like and dislike with enough curve's in the story to make you think that you didn't see that coming. I would say that the only thing that I might have been disappointed in was the ending, it just seemed to end all of a sudden. Still recommend to any Frey fan.

[Annette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Frey is a great author! He goes into such detail in his settings and the background of an area that you feel as if you've been there! His story lines are really good and all the questions are answered by the end. Nothing is left hanging.

In Hell's Gate we meet a litigator named Hunter who gets wrapped up in the world of firefighting when he visits his brother in Montana. A rash of huge forest fires breaks out through the western states and Hunter and his brother along with a friend Paul, a Fire Jumper, try to find out who is behind these monster fires. It's too coincidental to have so many fires so there must be an arsonist.

Lots of intrigue and suspense! Recommended.

[Sherrie · Rating 2 out of 5]

100 pages in and I still haven't connected with any of the characters. I'm still waiting for it to dig below the surface.

It started slower than tar, middle was intriguing and fast paced, definitely gave the book potential, but the end came to a screeching halt. Too many loose ends and inbound myself flipping the last page back and forth, thinking, that's it? It's over? What about.....

Should have started faster, and ended with much more info.

[Jill · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is strange that the summary in Good Reads and on the back of the CD cover provide an incorrect description of one of the main characters. Also, at one point in the book, Bozeman is described as the largest city in Montana, which is not true. Other than those errors, the book was suspenseful and had great descriptions of the dangerous job of a smoke jumper and the devastation of forest fires. But I did not like the ending!

[Jay Connor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stephen Frey's "Hell's Gate" is a very good yarn. Captures Montana and the power of wildfires. Unfortunately, the ending underwhelms. As always, Frey's characters are on the scale from strong to serviceable. While always an author who hasn't conceived a coincidence that he doesn't like and use, here he's a little too cute. Enjoy the scenery, but don't look too hard behind the curtain.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's funny, I thought this was the guy who Oprah shamed for writing a sham-memoir (A Thousand Little Pieces?), but it turns out that this isn't that guy at all. What I found instead is a decently written, Montana-based, outdoor thriller, that I thoroughly enjoyed. Deceit, intrigue, fishing and a very un-american ending. Really, what's not to like here.

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of plot twists! This takes place in Montana where someone is setting forest fires for their own financial gain. The "hero", a NYC lawyer, finds himself involved in solving this crime when he takes a case against a Montana Railroad company. The successful prosecution of that case leads him to who is purposely setting the forest fires.

I will read Frey again.