The Holland Suggestions

John Dunning

4/12/2003>

Jim Ryan is a single parent, a contracting engineer, and lives outside Richmond, Virginia. His ex-wife has been gone since his daughter Judy was an infant. Now Judy is in her mid-teens and wondering about her mother. To Jim, this means opening memories from the past. He not only talks about Vivian, his ex-wife, but also Robert Holland and the hypnosis experiments.

He receives an anonymous package at work. He opens it to discover a picture of a cave opening in some mountains. He has never seen it before, yet his memory is puzzling over it. When he receives another, closer picture, his restlessness and uneasiness increase. His work suffers. He is told to take a vacation.

Jim decides to go to New York to discover the origin of the photographs. Yet his subconscious is compelling him to go west. Soon he is crossing the country and driving to Colorado. Once there, he has to locate the cave and rid himself of the compulsion and mysteries. He also has to stay alive.

Dunning is an excellent writer, and this book fits right in there. It's one of his earlier works, published in the mid 1970's. This novel is written in first person narrative, so the reader is as clueless as Jim Ryan is. The adverse weather conditions in the high Rockies are as much of an opponent as the people who seem to be following him. The reader can picture the whirling snow and white outs as well as feel the cold. At times the weather is more oppressive than the mysterious followers. All weaves together into a book I recommend.

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