The Hike

Lucy Clarke

If a multi-day hike on an isolated trail through a pristine forest is your idea of paradise (or your living nightmare), this is the thriller for you.

Meet our crew of lady hikers, lifelong friends with the deep bonds and old wounds inherent in long relationships. There’s a successful doctor with twin children and a ‘perfect’ marriage that, unbeknownst to anyone else, is on the rocks; a successful single with a perfect fringe and possible surprise pregnancy (but she’s too afraid to take the test to find out); the mother-hen of the group, divorced with a daughter she dotes on; and a famous rock singer whose life is as messy as it is glamorous.

Every year, the four of them go on holiday together. That’s traditionally meant lounging by a pool with cocktails in hand. This year, however, it was the doctor’s turn to choose. In a desperate attempt to escape her marital woes, she’s chosen a backcountry hike around a fjord and over a mountain in southern Norway.

The girls’ pre-hike prep included workout plans and equipment lists, which all but the doctor ignored — but tradition is tradition. This girls’ trip is on.

During the too-long car ride to the lodge, the vibe is off, and it doesn’t improve once they arrive. Everyone drinks too much, tension simmers under the surface, one of the girls has a sketchy hook-up with a local in the bathroom — and they learn the unsettling story of a girl who went missing on a similar hike just a year ago.

As the band gets louder, the girls get drunker, and a cranky old-timer issues these words of warning:

‘Some locals think that there is an energy about the place. A sense of something larger than us… That feeling of unease, of not being alone, that isn’t immediately explicable. It’s where the mist hangs. Chills you to the bone. Not the temperature. It’s a feeling. Like something pressing on your chest. Blafjell is said to be a thin place. You know what that means?… Where order meets chaos. Where life meets death. Where you see things you’d rather you hadn’t, ja? I don’t go up the mountain. Stick to the forest, the river, the other peaks. Not Blafjell.’

If you read any advice for hiking in Norway, it warns you to choose trails based on your physical abilities and equipment, and cautions visitors to the land of fjords to expect four seasons in a day — and to embrace a willingness to change plans if the weather turns.

Our pretty ladies ignore all of this wisdom to their peril. Their packs are too heavy and filled with the wrong things. There’s a raging storm. They lose a tent and, worse, their map. There’s a landslide. A mysterious man silently appears on the trail, seemingly out of nowhere. And they’re literally days from civilization with no phone service.

As the external danger ratchets up, their own self-doubts emerge in ugly ways. Long-held secrets are revealed, including a massive betrayal, and then the dangers intensify in shocking ways.

This novel is a hoot. It’s perilous right out of the gate and never lets up. The descriptions of the scenery are spot-on, and after a tragic turn, the ending is very satisfying.

The four of them stood shoulder to shoulder on the crest of the ridge. The ocean. There it was – breath-catching in its wide, shimmering blue. Sheltered by sheer-sided mountains was a sugar-white beach. It stretched into a crystal-clear bay, the water an otherworldly arctic blue. It was like no place she’d ever seen. Joni stood rooted to the spot, heart lifting. ‘My God!’ Her blood fizzed with a pure energy. A fresh breeze, kissed with salt, brushed her neck like a lover. Beside her, Liz shaded the lowering sun from her eyes, head shaking slowly. On her other side, Helena tipped back her head and laughed. At the far end of the wide beach, Blafjell mountain rose high and vast in stoic shades of grey, guarding its jewel-blue secret. A lone red fishing boat was leaving the bay, a white wake all that was left as it disappeared in the lee of the mountain. — Lucy Clarke

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