Here's a real summer vacation gone wrong. Four twentysomething Americans in Cancun impulsively decide to accompany a chance-met fellow tourist on a side trip to the jungle. They hope to find their new acquaintance's missing brother and visit an archaeological ruin, but right from the beginning, when the locals seem spooked by their hand-drawn map, it's apparent that something is seriously amiss. -VERDICT The tension escalates to a terrifying pitch as Smith (A Simple Plan) explores the way people can change when placed in terrifying situations. (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

At long last, Smith follows up his bestselling first novel, A Simple Plan (1993), the film of which received an Oscar nomination for best screenplay, with a stunning horror thriller. Four American friends on vacation in Cancun, Mexico Jeff, Amy, Eric and Stacy meet a German tourist, Mathias, who persuades them to join his hunt for his younger brother, Henrich, last seen headed off with a new girlfriend toward some ruins. The four soon regret their impulsive decision after they find themselves lost in the jungle and freaked out by signs that they're headed for danger. Smith builds suspense through the slow accretion of telling details, until a deadly menace starts taking its toll, leaving the survivors increasingly at each other's throats. While admirers of such classic genre writers as John Wyndham or Algernon Blackwood may find the horror less suggestive than they might wish, the eerie atmosphere and compelling plot should appeal to fans of ABC's hit TV series Lost, who will help propel this page-turner up bestseller lists. Ben Stiller's production company has bought film rights. 100,000 first printing. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Smith's smash-hit debut, A Simple Plan (1993), a psychological thriller about greed, was made into a popular film. Now, after a long absence, Smith turns in a suspense novel tainted with remedial horror. Imagine an episode of Friends on psilocybin mushrooms. Two twentysomething American couples are vacationing in Cancun, where they befriend Mathias, an English-speaking German, and Pablo, an easygoing Greek. Amy is the worrier. Stacy, her best friend, is an impulsive airhead. Jeff is the ambitious can-do guy. Eric is laid-back and passive. All they intend to do is party, but when Mathias goes to look for his brother at an archaeological site near some Mayan ruins, the others go along. Naive and hubristic, the vacationers are soon entrapped by people they can't understand and besieged by a creepy, inexplicable power. Smith has crafted a harrowing page-turner all right, but it is so grim, the horror so simplistic and relentless, and the cultural implications so dubious that drama and scariness give way to dismay and disgust. --Donna Seaman Copyright 2006 Booklist

Adult/High School-Two American couples just out of college head to Mexico for a sun- and tequila-filled vacation. They befriend some like-minded Greek tourists and a German man whose brother has followed an archaeologist to the site of her dig. The Americans and one of the Greeks decide to go into the jungle to help Matthias find his brother. Blissfully ignorant, they head off with minimal rations, but lots of tequila. Despite all warning signs, they continue to a desolate Mayan village whose residents seem intent on keeping them away. Once American Amy steps off the path into a patch of vines, things suddenly change. As in A Simple Plan (Knopf, 1993), Smith creates a gripping story in which each character's uncertainties and human frailties are as horrific as the actual horror around them. Though the story is told in the third person, each American spends time as a protagonist, giving readers an understanding of his or her fears and motivations. This also allows readers to second-guess the characters. The book has no chapter breaks, which echoes the long and dreadful adventure. Even though only a few days pass, it feels much longer, as the plot moves minute-by-minute through each day. The ending is highly satisfactory and perfectly tragic. Though there are some brief scenes of gore, most of the suspense is psychological, but no less frightening. Fans of everything from Jurassic Park to Lost to Stephen King will love this book.-Jamie Watson, Harford County Public Library, MD (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Nature turns evil in this novel of horror and suspense involving reckless young Americans and a couple of fellow travelers trapped in the wilds of remote Mexico. This is the first novel from Smith since his 1993 debut, A Simple Plan, which had greater popular impact in its 1998 movie adaptation, which earned him an Oscar nomination for best screenplay. This material might also prove riveting on the big screen, but as a novel, lacks narrative momentum, taking too long to reach its resolution. Two young couples on the verge of big changes (med school, career, geography) enjoy a last fling in Mexico before assuming the responsibilities of adulthood. The two young women are best friends, though one is as cautious as the other is careless. Their two male partners are connected mainly through the women. As happens on vacation, they develop quick friendships, in this case with a taciturn German who speaks English and a trio of fun-loving Greeks who don't. The German's brother disappears with a beautiful woman to join an archaeological dig into Mayan ruins, miles removed from urban civilization. As an adventure, the four Americans and one of the Greeks join the German in search of his brother. Once they arrive, though, they fear it will be impossible for them to leave, partly because of the armed Mayans surrounding the site, partly because of the bodies in detailed states of decomposition that litter the area, but mainly because of some mysterious vines with amazing powers that expand as the novel progresses. While these tourists are isolated in the wilderness for many, many (many) pages, the novel shifts from a horror story of graphic gore to a more interesting psychological thriller. If character is destiny, the major suspense lies with which one of them, if any, will survive. A compelling set-up and provocative premise, but what should be a page-turner succumbs to a plodding pace. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.