HELL’S GATE
Stephen Frey
Atria Books
Thriller
ISBN: 9781416549659
Stephen Frey was known primarily as an author of financial thrillers, perhaps most notably for his series featuring Christian Gillette. The majority of his work, however, has consisted of stand-alone novels. Recently he has been edging away from the world of commodities trading, corporate takeovers and high finance. While his latest offering, HELL’S GATE, is involved to some extent with business matters, Frey goes far afield, both geographically and topically, from Wall Street. The result may well be his most complex and intriguing work to date.
HELL’S GATE takes place in the isolated setting of Fort Mason, Montana, and commences with a number of independent storylines that, while occurring in the same geographical area, begin to converge almost from the beginning of the narrative but do not thoroughly intersect until well after the book’s midway point. Each are equally interesting in their own right. Hunter Lee is a relatively young, wildly successful trial attorney with a white shoe New York law firm where, it turns out, there is an unequal division of work and reward. He has a reputation that precedes him into Fort Mason, where he has brought a legal action against Bridger Railroad, the negligence of which has resulted in horrific injuries to Hunter’s clients. His success in the case is greater than he anticipates, but his triumph is tempered when he has divorce papers served upon him just as the trial is concluded.
Hunter’s brother, Strat, is a long-time resident of Montana who, in the aftermath of the trial, attempts to persuade Hunter to move to the area. Strat is employed by Butch Roman, the owner of an extremely successful construction company that is in the middle of a project for Callahan Foods Company, one of the area’s major employers and whose owner, Dale Callahan, is being pressured to sell a part interest in his company to Katrina Mason, the latest generation of the family that established the isolated town of Fort Mason. Mason is functioning as a straw figure for George Drake, the unprincipled CEO of Bridger Railroad.
Callahan, on the other hand, is friendly with U.S. Senator William “Big Bill” Brule, who owns a logging company in the area. Brule has left the day-to-day operations in the hands of his older son, Jeremy, who is close to overseeing the ruination of the business. It is Brule’s younger son, Paul, who is better suited to run the company, but he wants no part of it. Paul is a respected, almost legendary Fire Jumper who finds himself in the area after a series of mysterious fires destroy thousands of acres of timber. Just about everyone, from Big Bill to Hunter to Drake, has one or more secrets here; and the mystery that hangs over the entire proceeding is not so much who is profiting from the fires but who is profiting the most.
The characters in HELL’S GATE are broadly though not especially deeply drawn. However, the pristine setting and the interwoven plots call to mind such epic television series as “The Big Valley” and “Dallas,” so that one is irrevocably drawn into the narrative almost immediately. And Frey perfectly captures a tipping point, one of those moments that individuals will almost universally recognize yet rarely discuss: Hunter, though New York through and through, sits in a no-sign Fort Mason restaurant named The Lion’s Den, having a cheeseburger and a beer, and suddenly understands, in a moment of clarity, why people want to spend the rest of their lives in Montana.
It is one of those very true-to-life moments that one encounters in the best fiction; for those who are fortunate enough to have experienced such a moment of illumination at some point in their lives, it is immediately recognizable and gratifying. HELL’S GATE is worth reading for that reason alone, and for so much more.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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