There are several ways to tell the story of a voyage. Sharing meaningful insights is one -- bon mots conceived while slipping off the butt end of a calving glacier or sitting seven hours in Economy.

Another way is by places seen and the names of things. That would be Santiago, Chile; Easter Island, Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego, Buenos Aires, and guanaco, Magellanic penguin, Hanga Roa, moais, Williwaws, and the Museo Chileno de Arte Precolumbino.

Oh yes, there's a third way. Welcome to my three-hour slide show on our voyage to Patagonia. With music! Sit back and enjoy!

There is a fourth way, and today it is my way. What did we read? What got us through the slow times on eight flights, an ocean voyage, three countries, two hemispheres with reversal of seasons and any number of time zones?

Since we were "on vacation," I determined my mind would also take a break from heavy lifting. Unlike my wife, who dutifully read the pre-trip information and therefore remembered to pack her rain gear. She read Easter Island, a serious novel by Jennifer Vanderbes and The Moai Murders by Lyn Hamilton, author of a great number of anthropologically obsessed mysteries.

I concentrated on paranoid thrillers of the post-Soviet era type.

I began with an author new to me, selling well in airports across the world: Christopher Reich. I got on a Chris Reich tear. I read his newest book in one large and enjoyable gulp, then consumed some of his earlier titles. I should have stopped with the first book, because it's by far his best. Rules of Deception will officially appear in libraries and bookstores in July.

In the meantime, you might read, as I did, The Patriots Club Numbered Account and several others. After a while you'll realize that yes, an author's biography does affect his characters. Mr Reich worked as a Swiss banker, as does his main character in Numbered Account and he probably fantasized about being a soldier because all his main characters are either ex-military or world-class mountaineers. There's a pattern here.

One morning I was walking with my friend Roy B. (and 25 other well-shod trekkers) at the foot of the Darwin Mountain range alongside Admiralty Fjord near Marinelli Glacier. Fighting elephant seals hallooed in our cold and windy ears, or were those mating calls, I forgot to find out, when my friend asked me:

"Is Bobby his mother?"

I refused to answer, on the grounds that a thriller writer wants his readers guessing, but silently was astounded Roy had figured it out. When I got to that page I had no idea Bobby was a female, let alone a mother. Roy has the kind of mind I lack, a mind that deciphers a plot way before it's supposed to.

On the covers of these books I found quotes such as "Reich leaves us no time to think but keeps us panting all the way." "Once again, Chris Reich is firing on all cylinders." "Briskly paced thriller packed with genuine surprises." "The jive is feverish, the thrills are torrential." And my favorite, from the understated reviewer at the Wichita Falls Times Record News: "A very fast-paced novel with more twists and turns than I've read in a while."

My quote: "Kept me awake more than once while waiting for the seat belt sign to go off."

We're out of time to mention the other highly worthwhile and serious books I read along the way. Just kidding.

Aired Sunday April 6, 2008 at 10:55 am and Wednesday April 9, 2008 at 1:00 pm

Museo Chileno de Arte Precolumbino: http://www.precolombino.cl/es/english/index.php
Truly a beautiful place, in Santiago, Chile, near Plaza de Armas.

Williwaw: "A sudden blast of wind descending from a mountainous coast to the sea, in the Strait of Magellan or the Aleutian Islands." http://ggweather.com/winds.html

Our Explora Lodge guide told us these whipping winds scutting along the tops of glacier-fed lakes in the high country of Patagonia reflected gusts of 60 to 100 km. Several times we were whipped off our feet while doing nothing more dangerous than stepping down boulder-filled paths holding on desperately to aluminum staffs. At one moment I found myself resting on top of a rain-coated older woman who had found herself suddenly eating dirt while the wind turned the surrounding grit into granite bullets. Good times.

"Gore Vidal's first novel, Williwaw, based on a ship in the Aleutian Islands, features the williwaw." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williwaw

Orders/Information:

Easter Island by Jennifer Vanderbes. Dial Press paperback $13. ISBN 0385336748. Publisher: "In this extraordinary fiction debut rich with love and betrayal, history and intellectual passion two remarkable narratives converge on Easter Island, one of the most remote places in the world."

The Moai Murders (Archaeological Mysteries) by Lyn Hamilton. Berkley Publishing Group paperback $7.99. ISBN 0425208974. Yes, she spells it with one "n". Publisher: "Antiques dealer Lara McClintoch accompanies her best friend to Easter Island now known as Rapa Nui and the Moai, its giant stone carvings. Their awe is soon tempered by the fierce rivalries among a group of Rapa Nui experts at their hotel. When one ends up dead, Lara investigates."

Rules of Deception by Christopher Reich. Doubleday hardcover $24.95. ISBN 9780385524063. To be published in July, 2008. You can borrow my ARC or "advance reading copy" to the uninitiated.

The Patriots Club by Christopher Reich. Bantam Books paperback $7.99. ISBN 044024143X. This novel inexplicably won "Thriller Award for Best Novel of the Year" from the International Thriller Writers Association in 2006.

Numbered Account by Christopher Reich. Dell Publishing paperback $7.99. ISBN 0440225299.

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