DEATH WALK by Walt Morey (Blue...

DEATH WALK by Walt Morey (Blue Heron Publishing: $13.95; 176 pp.). Veteran writer of outdoor-adventure stories Walt Morey has already demonstrated his familiarity with the complexities of nature (most famously in “Gentle Ben”), but in this, his latest novel, his take on human nature is disappointingly one-dimensional. His characters consist of good guys, bad guys, and bad guys who, all too predictably, turn out to be pretty good guys after all. What brings them all together in one narrative is 17-year-old Joel Rogers’ decision to run away from home by stowing away aboard a small plane bound for the Alaskan wilderness. Once there he will witness murder and mayhem, be buried alive in a mine cave-in, shoot and be shot at and generally find himself in all kinds of jeopardy. However, by learning how to fight and how to shoot a gun and how to survive the worst that the untamed wilderness can toss at him, he will become a “real” man, return home and enjoy the kind of relationship with his father that heretofore only his older brother Rocky (!) had enjoyed. To give Morey his due, he continues to demonstrate the capacity to create vividly real wilderness settings and to write with rare insight and empathy about wild animals (a pair of wolves in this case). Now if only he could do something about those human characters.