The Oath: A Novel

Unconvinced that his brother was really killed by a bear while camping in the Pacific Northwest, Steve Benson, a wildlife biologist, decides to investigate on his own, and discovers a town controlled by evil

Amazon.com Review

Under cover of darkness, something evil is at work in Hyde River, an old mining town deep in the mountains. Its latest victim, nature photographer Cliff Benson, was brutally killed while camping -- and his wife Evelyn has been driven nearly mad by what she saw, but she can't remember what it was. The sheriff thinks a rogue bear killed Cliff. But townspeople whisper -- and Cliff's death is just the latest in a long string of bizarre "accidents." Cliff's brother Steve is determined to find out the truth about what's concealed in the old caverns near Hyde River, a mystery that the local folk legends only hint at.

From Booklist

A wildlife biologist named Steve Benson has come to the remote mountain town of Hyde River to investigate the gruesome death of his brother. Benson tracks down and kills a grizzly, but then more people are killed and the bears are exonerated. Benson begins to listen with seriousness to the ravings of an old hermit who says that there's a dragon who lives in Saddlehorse Mountain and who lives on sin. It seems that in the 1880s, when Hyde River was a booming mining town, a fire-and-brimstone preacher was hanged, and the perpetrators then signed an oath embracing Reason as their god. In more than 100 years, their sins have grown into a monster. Steve tracks the chimerical dragon, which toys with him and lets him go. Steve is the embodiment of reason but feels the weight of sin when he begins an affair with a married woman, a local deputy named Tracy. A red mark appears over his heart, and gradually it begins to ooze black slime. Judgment Day arrives, and the dragon comes to claim its own. Steve, at last a believer, stands alone to do battle, rather like Bilbo Baggins of The Hobbit, except that Peretti writes with a grim fervor rather than playfulness. Largely because of the success of This Present Darkness (1987), Peretti's name inspires awe in the religious publishing world; The Oath is so heavily anticipated that its prepublication sales placed it fifth on the Evangelical Christian best-seller list. John Mort

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