Monteith's Mountains is a suspenseful, powerful and arousing read, holding you by plot, character, and the inspiring beauty of its southern Appalachian Settings. Once you start, you probably won't put it down. . . . Played out in the Great Smoky Mountains . . . at a time when this remarkable region is experiencing its own environmental horror, the central villian/victim's own ravaging destruction of life and innocence seems . . . parallel.

--Howard Dorgan, Past President of the Appalachian Studies Association and the author of four books on Appalachian Culture.

Monteith's Mountains is a story of the Smoky Mountains without stereotypes, thank God. This is an honest saga as pure and clean as mountain air, as invigorating as a gourd dipper full of cold spring water. . . . a many-faceted tale of mountain folk before six-lane highways, back when the motives of man were not always pure, but were always direct. Youll like this one.

Monteith's Mountains is a dramatic portrait of the Great Smoky Mountains and their people. Skip Brooks captures both the voices of mountain people and the dramatic landscape of their beloved Smokies in a haunting tale.

Monteith's Mountain's is going to be a bestseller. It's a stunning piece of work, and I'm really surprised how emotionally immersed I got into the book. It sucks you in beyond belief!

--Stephen Lycett, President; Zeroflux Virtual Reality, Inc. ~ Arlington, Virginia. Co-Founder and Editor of www.capitolgrilling.com, The Political Parlor Game.

Monteith's Mountains, a solid work with noble intentions . . .No need to get uppity about themes and symbolism when a writer savors details and realistic quirks of nature, symbolism takes care of itself. . . . Brooks has savored the starkly double-natured spirit of the southern mountains and has figured out Destiny with a capital D.

The main character in Brooks' tale Walker Tom Monteith is an anti-Christ, a serial murder of young women, whose pathology includes a childhood visitation by Christ, a brutal rivalry with his lordly, polygamist father and a rejection by his lustful mother. "The Lord giveth and the Lord giveth again," he intones as he awakens one morning beside a Bryson City girl he'd wooed, loved and stabbed.

(C)haracter development take the form of psychological briefs, such as this analysis of Monteith by a sheriff who had pursued Montieth to his Smoky Mountain refuge. "Something awful must have happened in that valley. Something that hurt so much, Walker Tom couldn't heal. Now he's got to keep on killing before it can hurt him again."

Walker Tom Monteith must also track down and kill the dark-skinned Indian fellow who'd witnessed him murder a man caught in a bear trap. He obsession goes beyond self-preservation. The Indian, Goodman Brant (yes, that's his name) represents a goodness that Walker Tom feels, will require a fight-to-the-death in the end. There are other interesting characters in Brooks' turn-of-the-century regional epic including Taylor Henry, an independent young woman who runs a logging camp (Brooks based her on a real-life Hazel Creek figure).

-- Bob Neufeld, Asheville Citizen-Times