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    Descent
    Descent
    Descent
    Audiobook11 hours

    Descent

    Written by Tim Johnston

    Narrated by R.C. Bray and Xe Sands

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    From the day Caitlin vanishes the lives of her family members are irrevocably altered, each assuming blame for that day's tragic events. As the initial days of hope are replaced by weeks of anxiety and despair, they find themselves increasingly isolated, each wondering: Is she still alive? Will we ever know what happened?Pursuing every angle and refusing to surrender the belief that his daughter is still alive, Caitlin's father struggles through the mountainous terrain, prodding both his son and the local authorities to keep up the search. It is through a most unlikely source, however, that they finally find an answer, in a climax that is stunning in both its execution and resolution.Written with precision and elegance, Johnston captures characters' emotions, divergent thoughts, and moments of bleak loneliness as they search for answers. Descent is both a taut and gripping thriller and a work of outstanding literary merit, a combination of great story and beautiful writing that is certain to garner comparisons with the work of such bestselling writers as Cormac McCarthy and Dennis Lehane.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighbridge Company
    Release dateJan 6, 2015
    ISBN9781622315048
    Descent

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    Reviews for Descent

    4/5

    371 ratings81 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I thank Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill and Netgalley.com for the advance reading of this book.

      I yearn to chat with the world and give away the secrets in the story!
      I can only say if a lover of thrilling fiction doesn't read this book it will one of the greatest losses of their reading life! I didn't put the book down. Read until I fell asleep from exhaustion and only paused long enough to make coffee in the morning before finishing it. I had to know...what happened!

      The Rocky Mountains are there with you. You feel the chill and cold; smell the trees and breath the air.

      The author's ability to create raw emotion and life into the characters is phenomenal. The story tears at your heart. No one in the story is left unexplored; some in minor detail and some in depth. All are real and you regret not having more to know about them in the end.

      I eagerly look forward to future books from this author!

      Highly recommend the book.
    • 4/5
      Thoroughly enjoyed this book for many reason. Great characters whose stories are told through a terrible crime. I loved every character in the Courtland family. I also enjoyed the fact the ending was good, but not everything was perfect. Not a happily every after. That makes the novel so much more realistic. The setting, (Colorado Rockies) is of course stunning as well. This story could happen to anyone and that is what makes it so intriguing to read. There is good fodder here for book clubs as well. Highly recommend this book.
    • 4/5
      There are certain books that might actually end up making better movies, or TV shows than novels. In my mind this book is one of them, with certain scenes needing a certain photographed or captured moment to illustrate them properly. That is not to say that this is a bad book, because it most certainly isn't. It is however, a book that required for me, a great deal of patience. The suspense I had read about in other people's reviews did not hit me until about 100 pages in, when I really delved into the characters lives, and what was happening to what had once been a happy, albeit dysfunctional family.Without spoilers I will tell you that the end of this novel gripped me, the words wrapping themselves around me and encasing me in them. The pages flipped rapidly and I found myself almost anxious to figure out what would happen next, the book held tightly in my hands.The characters, I discovered had become people that I cared about. Fully fleshed out, and entirely flawed they had come with their own sets of problems, amplified by the trauma of what occurred in the mountains. They were not perfect. There was no perfection in this family, not even in Caitlin but yet that was what I continued to like about them. Their flaws. This book felt very real to me, the situation unfortunately is one that does arise in life, as we constantly hear news stories about children who have gone missing, teenagers abducted. It was obvious to me that the author had attempted to draw me in with the familiarity of the situation and succeeded in doing so. This was not a book I started out loving, apprehensive of the subject matter and whether it could be dealt with sensitively enough. It was handled beautifully, by the end, and horrifically (in a good way) at other turns. It is one I recommend to anyone who loves crime fiction, suspense or who is looking for something with a bit of familiarity but something that also manages to be unique.
    • 4/5
      audio abduction...mystery...Rocky Mountains...2015...debut adult novel... Courtland family—Grant, Angela, Caitlin, and Sean...
    • 3/5
      Johnston skillfully conveys the utter anguish felt by a familly when their teenage daughter disappears after a car accident where her younger brother was left seriously injured. Then comes guilt, blame, and the unravelling of their lives. It's an unpleasant story, strangely denying any sympathy for the remaining family especially in the early stages of the book. I am personally well-acquainted with the Canadian Rockies yet Johnston's Rockies are completely foreign: there was nothing familiar in his setting. The chapters jump around a lot, making the flow erratic as the reader must re-adjust every few pages to determine whose story is being told and at what point in time. But despite that, Johnston has a way with words and portrays events in perfect detail. Regarding a rating, however, I'm torn: I disliked the story even though it was well-written.
    • 5/5
      Talk about starting a book and then with a quick jerk the barb is set, I was hooked. Hooked hard. A page turner to the end this was an excellent book. Well written with a smooth flow that I could not put down and when I did it was well past my bedtime. With superb writing and great characters Tim Johnston has wrote a book that will surly put him as one of the best suspense/thrill writers today. One of the best books I have read in a long time.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this book, it was easy to listen to while working and kept me interested. The female narrator is absolutely ridiculous and almost unbearable to listen to. I had to stifle a laugh at times when she was reading things that were not meant to be funny.
    • 5/5
      Outstanding; worth the read. Wonderfully detailed. Emotionally captivating and gripping.
    • 3/5
      I would have liked this a lot more if a good third of the book weren't in italics and if the characters weren't asking each other to repeat themselves ALL THE TIME. That said, the story was good, my beef is with the style.
    • 1/5
      I read some of the national publication reviews for this novel, and they had written things such as “super-charged”, “compelling”, and “addictive thriller”, and after reading this novel, I’m wondering if these critics read the same book that I did. The novel that I read was the complete opposite of these things. The situation in the novel is interesting. College student, Caitlyn, is hiking in the Rocky Mountains with her brother, and she is kidnapped. It starts off with a compelling idea, but what follows is so utterly boring, mundane, not remotely compelling or riveting. After that, it’s basically her family members in the aftermath not doing a whole helluva lot. Her mom goes back home with her brother. Her dad stays around in Colorado where he is just kind of passing the time, not actively doing much to find his daughter. If there was some active investigation in finding her, I would find it more interesting, but that was not the case.If you’re reading this novel with the goal of curing insomnia, then I would suggest you read it. But if you’re trying to be entertained or engrossed, then this novel falls way off the mark. I couldn’t even make it to the end of the novel, and I try hard to finish reading everything that I start.Carl Alves – author of The Invocation
    • 4/5
      Solid first novel, but I thought it went on a little long, and the ending was a bit too pat for me.
    • 3/5
      During the Courtland family vacation in Colorado, 18-year-old Caitlin is kidnapped when she accepts a ride with a stranger to get help for her injured brother. The rest of the family doesn't give up on finding her but time goes by without any sighting of her. Grant, her father, stays in Colorado, while her mother, Angela, returns to Wisconsin and tries to return to her former life. The majority of the book deals with the family trying to deal with Caitlin's absence and gets a bit long. I loved the descriptions of the Rocky Mountain area.
    • 3/5
      Caitlin lives to run. With a track scholarship and college just months away, life is good. But when she disappears during a family vacation, life as they knew ends for Caitlin and her brother and her parents. Her brother, badly injured and left in the mountains, shoulders some of the blame for her disappearance. Her parents blame him and each other. In the months that follow without any clues as to where she could be, the family slowly falls apart. The author has given us an interesting story, but much of the tension he wished to build could not be sustained through long narratives vacillating from past to present and to and from different groups of characters. Some serious editing and cutting of unnecessary story threads could only have improved the finished book. He gets credit for the characters and the plot, but really, I could have skipped the middle of the book and not missed much. If only the reader before me had penciled in my book, “after the prologue, skip to part IV,” I could saved that part of my life for another, more enticing book.
    • 3/5
      I picked this up for a reading group. It had been on my back burner for a long time. The premise of the story is that Caitlin and her brother Sean are exercising in the mountains alone on a family vacation. While on the mountain something bad happens and only Sean makes it down. What happened to Caitlin is the question that drives the destruction of her family. For a thriller this ended up being a lot less thrilling than I expected. The novel is populated by characters with little redeeming values making bad choices. The part that I cared the most about, what happened to Caitlin was actually the smallest part of the book. The ending was good but it took a lot of work to get there. The characters were hard to keep track of. For instance instead of calling Sean by his name he is sometimes referred to as the boy. For the first part of the book I wasn't even sure who was being talked about. While I am glad I finally got around to reading it I doubt I will remember very much about it.
    • 4/5
      Read it - the writing is so, so good. It's billed as a literary thriller. Most of the way through, it's more literary than thriller.At the beginning Something Dramatic happens. Until you get to the last 50 pages or so, the story unfolds from the perspective of the four main characters and covers how they respond to that event individually and relationally over the 2+ years that pass. The character development and evolution beautifully and authentically captures how complicated people and emotions are. It's really a powerful testimony to love, hope and family, but not at all in a treacly way.The last 50 pages delivers on the thriller. It seriously put a knot in my stomach and a lump in my throat. The actual resolution ended a tad too abruptly and tied things up a little too pat of a way, but it was a small price to pay.
    • 5/5
      Riveting story of a teen girl's abduction and her family's attempts to find her. Grim and realistic, the author tells less about the actual recovery (page-turning) and more about the impact of the crime -- psychologically and literally -- upon the remaining parents and brother. As a bonus, the book is well-written: think Cormac McCarthy meets Hemingway. Highly recommended who want some quality with their suspense.
    • 4/5
      Descent. Tim Johnston. 2015. The Courtland family goes to the mountains of Colorado at the request of daughter Caitlin. She wants to run through the mountains before she goes off to college on a track scholarship. Early one morning she starts out. Her younger brother follows her on his bike. Hours later he turns up in the hospital with a broken leg. Caitlin does not return. The Courtland’s world is turned upside down and inside out as they live through this nightmare. This suspenseful novel is beautifully written. Descriptions are lyrical and evocative. I was totally surprised and pleased with the quality of the writing.
    • 5/5
      On a family vacation in Colorado, an eighteen-year-old girl goes for a run on a deserted mountain road, accompanied by her younger brother on a mountain bike, when the worst thing happens. The boy is left injured, and the girl has disappeared, plummeting her family into a nightmare.This book was so much more than the escapist thriller I was expecting. It never goes in the expected direction. Johnston's writing style is spare but evocative, and he does a remarkable job of breathing life into the wild mountain setting and all the characters, large and small, allowing the reader to fully inhabit this book's world. While the subject matter is undeniably rough--there is rape, there is minor animal abuse--the story itself has a quality of myth, addressing themes of fate and chance and what it means to be a hero. This book enthralled me, and I'm sure it will stay with me for a long time.
    • 4/5
      Impossible to put down, this unwinds like a slow burning fever nightmare. Tough subject handled in a great literary style. Love the Colorado mountain wilderness setting.
    • 5/5
      I found this debut novel difficult to put down once I got into it.
    • 4/5
      Descent by Tim Johnston is a highly recommended thriller/family drama.

      "A daughter was your life; it was as simple as that. Her body was the only body, her heart the only heart. The most absolute, the most terrible love."

      Grant and Angela Courtland have taken their children, Caitland and Sean, on a last summer vacation in Colorado before their daughter Caitland starts college in the fall. When Caitland and Sean leave their hotel for an early morning run (Caitland) and an accompanying bikre ride (Sean) in the mountains. Only Sean comes back and his return is via a hospital stay for a badly broken leg. Caitland has seemingly disappeared after accepting a ride from a stranger in an effort to get Sean help.

      Suddenly the Courtlands are a family with a missing daughter and a broken son. The whole family begins to implode under the tremendous emotional toll they are undergoing between Caitland's disappearance and Sean's recovery. Weeks become months and then years. Angela stays at the family's home in Wisconsin, slowly falling apart while Grant stays in Colorado, helping an elderly man while hoping to find clues leading to Caitland's return. Sean takes off in his dad's truck and crosses the country on his own adventure before circumstances send him back to Colorado.

      Descent by Tim Johnston shows how a single choice can change so many circumstances for each of his characters.. While the writing is elegant and poetic, the actual development of all his very flawed characters is somewhat lacking. Angela's character is the least fully formed, while the development of Grant and Sean is based more on their actions than any real insight into their psyche. Descent, although beautifully written, was rather slow going until the plot took a turn part way through the book and became a more satisfying thriller and less family drama. The tension is ratcheted way up at this point and the narrative will firmly hold your attention to the end.


      Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill for review purposes.
    • 4/5
      This book kept me up past my bed time reading it straight through. The Courtland family are in the Rocky Mountains for a last vacation before their daughter, Caitlin, starts college. She and her younger brother, Sean, go out for a run, but only her brother returns. While the kidnapping is intense enough, the family's handling of this situation is as harrowing Definitely recommended.
    • 2/5
      The hype around this book is that it is a real thriller, one you simply could not put down. However, I put it down quite a few times without any problems in doing so. While it does not live up to its build-up, it is still a beautifully written tale that made it a decent read. Perhaps reading it in the dead of winter helped evoke how cold it was in those mountains, but I felt everything the characters did. However, there was too much stuff in there that really did not add to the story, making it drag in many places.
    • 5/5
      I had the pleasure of seeing Tim Johnston read at the Iowa City Book Festival, and I bought this book after hearing him read two short passages - one about a sister and brother who experience an unspeakable event while in the Rocky Mountains and the second about the brother's attempt to live his life a couple of years after the tragedy. The passages were well-chosen because they encapsulate this book as a whole. When the story begins, recent high school graduate Caitlin Courtland is vacationing in the Rocky Mountains with her family. She is preparing to go to college on a track scholarship and has chosen the Rocky Mountains for her graduation trip because running there will strengthen her lungs. Her brother, Sean, has rented a mountain bike so that he can go along with her, but he is much less athletic than Caitlin. When the sheriff shows up at the Courtlands' hotel, he delivers the news that Sean has been injured and Caitlin is missing. The remainder of the book tells of the difficult balance of carrying on with life while still holding out hope that Caitlin will be found. The middle section of the book is told in a nonlinear way, conveying the panic and struggle the family experiences, but it is the final section that impressed me the most. It has been a long time since I could not put a book down, but the final 100 pages of this book left me breathless.
    • 2/5
      I read the entire book only because I was curious about the ending. The sections seemed to be very disjointed and it was difficult to figure out who was in each scene and why. The ending, which included the evolution of Billie, probably the book's most interesting character, was good, although somewhat unbelievable.
    • 5/5
      This is one of the best books I've read in a long time, although I agree with other reviewers that the author's use of narration by shifting viewpoints could be a little confusing, which is why I gave this book 4 1/2 stars rather than 5. But the story itself? Totally riveting. The author does not sugarcoat anything, and horrifying things happen to the people and even some of the animals in this story. Some of it is extremely hard to read, but it is told so realistically that one has to admire the author for his unflinching ability to do so. There is a certain sense of dreadful anticipation throughout, and the climactic scenes are awful - but one must remember that people have actually gone through things like this and perhaps this is a terrifyingly realistic depiction of their experiences. Don't know how the author will top this, but I look forward to his next book.
    • 4/5
      I keep reading books about people who are abducted and held hostage. REMEMBER ME LIKE THIS, ABOVE, STILL MISSING, and now this. Of those titles, I think this one was the best. The premise itself--the abduction, the crime, the horror--is intriguing and keeps you turning pages, but the complex family dynamics at play are even more interesting. The first third of the book read a bit slow for me, and I was thrown off by the structure of the book (can we talk about the italicizing of entire chapters?). But then it all started to flow and I couldn't stop reading. There are some tangential elements and plot points that I could have done without (or should have been expanded upon), but all in all, it was a good read.
    • 1/5
      Had a really difficult time with this book, and couldn't finish it. It didn't draw me in at all, with characters I found grating, and narration that just didn't work for me. I've seen so many reviews that call this book riveting or brilliant, but I didn't see it. Maybe I'll try again when I'm sitting on a beach in Hawaii. Or maybe not.
    • 5/5
      I picked up this book simply based on the cover, not usually a good sign, however this time it totally worked out for me. This book was amazing and I could not put it down.I love thrillers, and this one was top-notch, but I quickly learned that this was not your standard NY Times Best Selling author fare (although it should be). Johnston's writing was much more literary and took more care in crafting his words than other authors that I also love but I can gobble up like candy. So much so that if I tried to read too fast I found myself needing to back up, slow down, and take care in my own consumption. His characters were so well founded that I loved them all, even Billy, because they were all very real individuals. And the plot simply pulled me in and made me care what happened to everyone and if Caitlin was ever found after she was kidnapped by some stranger after hitting her brother this his car. This is as close as I would ever like to come to living every parents nightmare. Lastly, as a side note, I've lived in 99% of my life in Colorado and I spent a good part of the book trying to determine exactly where in the Rocky Mountains they were (not sure where some other reviewers got Rocky Mountain National Park as that's in the wrong county, my best guess is Winter Park).
    • 4/5
      Descent by Tim Johnston is a thrilling mystery colored with the darkness of loss. The Courtland family is devastated by the disappearance of Caitlin and struggles to create life "after." The story gives the viewpoint of each family member; mom, dad, and younger brother Sean, and their struggle to make peace with their feelings of loss and guilt. Johnston creates a page-turner that cuts to the core of what family means, and how we identify ourselves with those we love. This one is a must-read!