So first off I want to say that I can't speak for the accuracy of Native Canadian mythology that's presented in this book. I know nothing about the topic so everything could be very accurate or it could be a load of hogwash. Depending on how much you know and how accurate the book is will probably change how much you enjoy it. This being said I personally loved the book. It was very engaging and well written I thought, and I really enjoyed most of the characters and the mythology presented. The

When you are not interested in Indian lore or shamans, this may not be the best book to read. It has taken ages to plough through it. It is boring, tedious and because it is based on superstition, unlikely as well. Sam Hunt, born Sam Hunting Wolf, has a family with a white woman and denies his Indian inheritance. He does keep an amulet, though. This amulet identifies him as the shaman who is supposed to protect his tribe from the Trickster. Once buried in Wolf Mountain, the Trickster escapes whe...

I was very impressed with the research that Muriel Gray obviously put into this novel. The setting of the novel is a fictious ski resort town but the surrounding landmarks and cities are real (and I happen to live in one of them!) The story itself was well written and kept my intrest throughout.

Golden yellow dollar coin? With a DUCK on it? Are you serious? Come on.. do a little research about Canada before writing a book that takes place there. And the truck driver at the start... why is he driving a load of frozen lobster through Alberta to the _east_ coast of Canada? I guess those Nova-Scotians hate fresh out of the ocean lobsters :|Putting aside Gray's lack of knowledge of Canada and Canadian culture, this is still merely an 'ok' book. I think it's her first horror novel so, I could...

This was an interesting story, lots of gory, gross deaths though. Biggest problem was the ending...the author took the lazy way to end with the last chapter set an unknown amount of time in the future. Guess she didn't want to get bogged down with the aftermath details. :-p

Enthralling horror epic based on Native Canadian mythology, of which I know nothing about (so as far as I know it could be hugely inaccurate), but still enjoyed very much. Though I thought Gray sometimes went off on a bit of a tangent, she delivers on memorable gory nastiness and there were several interesting (if occasionally confusing), characters.I'll be checking out more of her work.

For me this is one of those books that I struggled with because I just found it difficult to read. In fact, it took me 5 months to finish this novel. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not slow or lacking in ability or skill at reading, it’s just that the way the book is written makes it extremely painful to read. And the sad thing is, this book went through an editor and a publishing agent. To be clear the story is good, solid even all though there are few things that could have used some tweaking o

I desperately wanted to love this book. Hell, even to enjoy this book, but my god I was bored all the way through. The story premise was interesting, set in the early 20th century and modern day, the author tell the story of an ancient spirit wreaking havoc. Set in a snowy Canadian setting, it should have set itself up as an interesting read. But it wasn’t. I can’t even beat around the bush regarding this one. I gave it 2 stars, one for plot and one for well written characters. I feel like I’ve

Not a book I would recommend. It wasn't scary at all. The Trickster seems to like leaving eyeballs dangling from skulls because that happens at least three times in the book. Trickster doesn't only make you see tricks, he does tricks with your eyes, apparently.The dialogue was all over the place making it hard to follow. Redundant, unnecessary descriptions does not leave much to the reader's imagination. And repetitive phrases, for example he/she "stared for an age" was extremely annoying... a l...

I'm not even sure what year I read this book--over twenty years ago? But I still think about it.

The Trickster is a phenomenal read. From the beginning of the book until the end, I was emotionally involved in the life of Sam Hunt and rooted for him to emerge like a phoenix from the ashes. What he faces and endures is so intensely heinous that the physical scars become nothing to the mental and physical that, in many cases, are self-inflicted. The story, history, culture, and racial tension epically pull the elements of the book together. In every culture, there is some type of entity, wheth...

The Trickster is a 1997 horror doorstopper by Scottish 80s-TV-celebrity-turned author Muriel Gray. Set in a Canadian ski resort, and obviously inspired by the work of Stephen King, it explores Native Canadian myths and the difficulties faced by Indians in a white world. I don’t read much horror, and this reminds me why, but it went around my Book Club, and I was interested too see what it would be like. I can’t say I enjoyed it but I was compelled to finish it.Sam Hunt is a Kinchuinick Indian wh...

Well I was up for the challenge for King-size horror.?More sick than scary. Seemed to go for gore then horror. Kind of lost interest in characters. Didn’t care how Trickster got tricked with too many “(The) Exorcist” references.

Everything in this novel was cold.The Setting was cold, the prose was cold, the plot was cold, even the love making scenes were cold.The way that Native Americans were portrayed was cold, as incestuous, Homosexual, drunken Savages.Muriel Gray's writing style was hard to follow at times, her grammar incorrect, even down to paragraph structure. Often I had a hard time determining which character was speaking and thinking. I'm sure the ending of this novel was spectacular, but I had difficulty dete...

God, this was tedious. It starts well with characters that are interesting and separating flashbacks in the story into chapters was useful in following the story arc. But then it gets lost. It's as if the author had this freight train of thought on paper and the brakes failed; it ran away. Became tedious and lacked any form or development. Too many words to convey the story as if she was paid by the page. Became boring, stopped making sense and I wished it was all over but I started and maybe it...

Found this one hard going. Lots of over the top nastiness and very obvious developments: for example, you know from early on that (view spoiler)[the husky dog (hide spoiler)] is not long for this world. Quite a nice twist that, in the flashbacks, the minister is not a bigot, is actually trying to help the native Canadians against the other white men, but there is also a lot of stereotyped stuff about native Canadians being alcoholics and wife/children abusers etc. Very prevalent head hopping wit...

Ms. Gray used to be (is?) a television and radio presenter for the BBC. I remember her in the good old '80s on The Tube trying to make the likes of The Jam and Sigue Sigue Sputnik behave for British telly viewers. Anyway the multi-talented Ms. Gray turned her hand to horror novels for a bit and Trickster, the first, is probably the best of the trio she wrote. Muriel is from Scotland but that didn't stop her from taking on a novel set in Alberta, Canada and largely based around native Indian folk...

I've read a few reviews that were critical in the author's writing style, random sentences or story additions that don't quite make sense, critical that reference to native Indian culture might not be quite correct, etc. However - if you take this story and read it to be entertained, to be taken on a journey, you will enjoy this story telling. The author has done a wonderful job in creating a truely engaging story with well developed characters, a great back drop, smooth transition between chara...

There were some things I liked about this book and some things I didn't. The most detrimental part was the constant point of view switches in the middle of conversations, no chapter break, no line break, just total head hopping - whoever let that get through editing should be fired. The story itself wasn't bad, and the characters weren't bad either. It was a little longer than it needed to be in my opinion, but if you just want an easy read to kill a train ride with, you could do worse.This is a...

I just couldn't get into this. The writing was disjointed and juvenile. The worst part was how Sam, the native Indian, saw prejudice in everyone around him. I am not saying there was no prejudice in this book, because there was, but Sam really had a chip on his shoulder. For example, he and his son wave at a passing train. The conductor doesn't wave back. Sam immediately thinks that it is because he is Indian. He couldn't believe that maybe the train conductor was preoccupied with driving the tr...