Rating: 
Summary: Far better than Darton's Neanderthal
Review: I picked up this book in the bargin a bin and decided to give it a try. 30 pages in, I was thinking of cutting my losses and tossing it aside. I chose to wade through the technical mombo jumbo of rock climbing and the very thin plot. What I ended up with was a better understanding of climbing. Is that what I wanted to get from this book? No. I will give Mr. Kerr another try but not for awhile.
Rating: 
Summary: Bargin bin book
Review: I picked up this book in the bargin a bin and decided to give it a try. 30 pages in, I was thinking of cutting my losses and tossing it aside. I chose to wade through the technical mombo jumbo of rock climbing and the very thin plot. What I ended up with was a better understanding of climbing. Is that what I wanted to get from this book? No. I will give Mr. Kerr another try but not for awhile.
Rating:
Summary: Badly researched pseudo science, a "b-movie" plot at most
Review: I read "A five year plan" by Kerr as the first of his books and was very happy with the pace the book was going and I liked the characters and dialogues a lot. The book is a real action thriller and a pleasure to read though many Kerr fans probably did not care too much for it...This one I got when I was ill at home and sent someone to get me "another Kerr book". I would not have bought it myself, as another reader mentioned, the cover already reveals too much of the far fetched plot! The scientific value of the book that is praised by many readers is very thin and just plain false in some cases. Technical details that are part of my scientific expertise are so wrong that I am very hesitant to believe any of the other things he "teaches" us throughout the book. The bad thing is, that a little better research or having someone with the scientific expertise proof read his scientific stuff would have made it much more believable. I don't understand why he has to go in such detail if he is not able to keep up with it. The characters are all rather boring, including the main characters. All characters of the expedition crew are so similar that only the bold and primitive prejudice towards their nationalities (German, Scottish, Nepalese etc.) make them stand out. The book starts out with a good pace and is quite interesting to read but the whole middle half of about 200 pages is very boring and drags along very slowly. I am not finished with the book but have lost interest even now that the pace picks up some towards the end and that we know how things will end. I felt a lot like reading some cheap imitation of a Jules Vernes novel. Kerr just recycles techno thriller stuff that he picked up quick and does not understand. He puts things together that are just so far fetched that it hurts to read it. Reading the book I felt like I was in a bad B-movie with a lame plot, bad actors and not even enough action either! I also did not enjoy the amount of fecals and urine we have deal with reading this. There should be better ways to get the snowman alive than having him urinate in the main characters mouth and eat his own excrements. I really like explicit literature but in my eyes it is just plain stupid, trying to make a point where there is none by pulling the disgusting stuff out. I think it will be a while before I touch another Kerr book. I hope to find one of his earlier books to be more my taste and better researched and written. Esau defenitely is not what I'd call literature.
Rating:
Summary: Exciting, vibrating and can't stop reading book
Review: I read the summary of "Esaú" at the library store and it looked for me very interesting. It has a cocktail with a lot of key themes for make the story interesting: "yeti", nuclear war, climbing, CIA, "sherpas", mistery, a love story, anthropology, ... Kerr mixed all these things together magically to bring us with "Esaú". As you know a lot of people in Hollywood are very interested in Kerr' stories, "Esaú" is a well-suited story to bring to the big screen, and I hope see it in the big screen soon. I recommend you "Easú", you start to read it but you can't stop.
Rating: 
Summary: Kerr: Writer or Know-It-All?
Review: I suppose the sarcasm of the title and the relatively low numerical score given reflect some of the disapointment I feel in the progression of Kerr's work. There were moments in A Philosophical Investigation when it occured to me that Kerr might actually be able to twist the mystery genre to his own ends. There's no sign of this in Esau. The story seems driven more by Kerr's desire to show us he knows more than most about a wide range of things than by its own internal logic and force. In this, he resembles our own loveable bore, Tom Clancy. Still, unlike Clancy, the man can write and the story moves at a decent clip and wraps up with a surprise. Always some things to be grateful for.
Rating:
Summary: Michael Crichton he ain't
Review: I was interested in the story, but put off by the author's lame writing. This book would have been more exciting had it been about half as long. The mountain climbing scenes were great, but the main characters were stereotypes from Steven Spielberg and not done nearly as well.
Rating:
Summary: Many dissapointing aspects to this one
Review: I was looking forward to reading this book. From the back of it it sounded really interesting and it was a good read up until they actually started the expedition. there was no suspence and almost no buildup at all. Once the plot started rolling, the book was no longer captivating. The end was kind of entertaining however. it might be worth reading once
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable read
Review: If you're into "fictional anthropology" (which I am) you'll enjoy this book. I'd have preferred it if Mr Kerr had left out the secondary political plot, but I suppose "conflict" (if you can call it that) sells. The mountain climbing factoids scattered throughout the book were very interesting and certainly made me think twice about trying it myself! Enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent genre fiction
Review: It may be junk-science, but Philip Kerr can do one thing that most of his thriller brethren cannot; write lucid prose. Essentially, this book races through a plot with no obvious filler or hokey phrasings that are common to most generic thrillers. It's a well-constructed story, the action coming directly from the needs of the plot, and the characters behaving appropriately, if dramatically.
Rating:
Summary: Very interesting book,
Review: Jack Furness is a mountain climber and by accident he comes upon a skull while climbing the Himalayan Mountains. And he just happens to have a girl friend that is an paleoanthropologist, Stella Swift. After smuggling the skull back to the good ol' US of A he gives Stella the skull. Which just happens to be the most unusal skull she has ever seen. She is so excited by this discovery she wants to go back to the Himalaya's with an expedition to look for more bones right away. In steps the good ol' CIA with funding, under a pretense of needing to go to the Himalayan's for a weather testing expedition but needing a guide and have to leave within the next 2 weeks, if you let me go along I'll pay. So they get their funding and are off to the Himalayan's. And the fun has just begun. The expedition has all the latest technology, of course and all the comforts of home...well almost. They set out on a seek and find mission and stumble upon some very unusual foot prints the first night out. The graphic descriptions are vivid and makes me not want to be there. Very detailed and realistic discriptions. They even throw in a yogi to boot. This is the first time I have read this author and will read him again. A great thriller, fast paced and a quiet enjoyable read. Don't know what the complaints were about, I have none.
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