I think the author has an interesting take on what happened. I found some parts of the book to be a bit dry, but overall I'd call it enjoyable. It's a topic I wanted to learn more about and learn I did.

Well laid out and told in an interesting manner. I went in only having read the Wikipedia article about the incident and having heard about it from my parents (who in turn heard about it from theirs as a cautionary tale), I learned a lot of new details about the case.

While I usually dislike switching timelines and perspectives, the method used here (switching between retelling of Dyatlov group's path, the investigation and the author's journey) worked quite well to keep my attention to the book.

I found the author's amazement over some Russian characteristics/traditions quite amusing.

4 stars for its genre. The author dissects a bizarre incident in which some Russian college kids were out camping in the Siberian wilderness and all 9 suddenly fled their tent without their coats or boots and died of hypothermia. A thoughtful dissection of the available evidence (more than 50 years old!) and review of the existing theories. Of course the author puts forth his own theory. I enjoyed reading this.

My one gripe, as someone with training as a scientist-- How you gonna put forth this wild theory and then do NOTHING to prove it??

Spoiler

At least set up some equipment to test whether the phenomenon really happens at that site. Or, if this is not possible for some reason, tell us why! This really bothered me, I feel like the story is not wrapped up at all. All he did was confer with some experts who felt like the SHAPE of the mountain from one picture was consistent with forming the right conditions. This does not satisfy me at all.

Fascinating story, very well told in this book. I hate to say I enjoyed the book because of the serious and saddening subject matter. My heart grieved for the families.

I think that Eichar's conclusion is fascinating and plausible. He wraps the book up with a recreation of the hikers final day, under the circumstances he presents, and tops it off with a brief eulogy for the men and women who lost their lives so mysteriously on that mountain. It's a great finish. I thought the rest of the book was a bit off kilter. Eichar presents this as a story about himself, a character obsessed with this incident, and so there is a lot involving him that feels like pointless filler. He paints himself as amateur foreign traveler, amateur hiker, amateur detective right up until the end, so that the whole time I did not trust that he would be able to conclude anything of value. And then suddenly he's talking about landslide statistics, weather conditions, and geography and he's a grownup researcher who finally stopped admiring his totally rad snow boots. I didn't care about him as a character. He did bring the hikers alive for me, though, making me care about them. A lot. It's definitely worth a read if the story interests you at all.

the dyatlov pass incidents is one of those real life creepypasta stories that just draw you in. its got everything you need. a government conspiracy! UFOs! secret weapons testing! crazy tribespeople! a dark and stormy night on a place called mountain of the dead! but then, when you take a closer look, its really not that interesting, while also becoming interesting in a new way.

first of all, the author is obnoxiously american and im going to take a star off for forcing me to read a fucking robert conquest quote. how dare you. like honestly. and i should seriously give this two fucking stars for taking the gulag archipelago at face value, like the guy didnt lie out of his ass. oh youre saying that in the middle of WW2, prisoners got their whole ass bodies dipped in a massive vat of acid? really? just a big ol' vat of acid in every gulag for every single prisoner? youre saying that the USSR used both prison labor AND tortured their prisoners to the point where they were incapable of doing any labor whatsoever? americans are beyond stupid. the stuff alleged in the gulag archipelago is worse than what the dictatorship here had done to communists and i think thats the point. its bad when communists put nazis in prison for being nazis and make them sweat it out a bit doing some hard labor but when nazis literally do unfathomably EVIL shit to everyone else, we handwave it and say 'well the soviets had prisons!' literally drop dead immediately

and the reason im going off on such a tangent is because halfway through the book, i genuinely thought eichar was going to suggest the ghost of stalin himself strangled each and every one of the hikers. granted, he attempts to do this obnoxious thing americans do where they view other non europeans as, like, wildlife or something, and mentioned all the ways those wacky russians were different yet similar. i hate that. shut up gringo, tell me what killed those hikers

once again im being a little unfair, but it is a serious pet peeve of mine because it so often goes unexamined by americans who truly feel they have absolutely nothing to examine. they dont have to consider their position in the world relative to others because they are the default, and thus all their observations have an air of objectivity. the rest of the world, particularly brazil, has a sort of wounded dog mentality in comparison, and i think thats fucking unfair. so whenever i see americans in another country, particularly in russia, a conflict that they have largely won and yet today still believe they have to further destroy that country, i believe they need to challenge their own ego.

i still havent gotten to the real meat of the book yet and thats because theres not that much to it. it tries to piece together the dyatlov groups known path and the ensuing investigation while also weaving in eichars own journey to find the answer to a nearly 60 year old mystery. it was a nice way of creating cliffhangers to a story where presumably the audience knows most of the story already.

while ive criticized eichars general american-ness, i think his writing is mostly solid. i was never really bored, and i enjoyed reading his reconstruction of events. they were heartbreaking, knowing how talented and well loved the hikers were, and eichar takes special care to humanize not only them, but everyone they met along the way. and the interview with yuri yudin, the only survivor of the dyatlov group, was very cool. yudin outright says he loves stalin lmfao

this is a pretty solid read and it doesnt really indulge nutty conspiracy theories for too long, though for a long time i thought it might go for the government cover up angle (again, american....). its a pretty fast read so if youve got a long commute like i do, it wouldnt hurt to give it a go.