It's been waiting a million years ... to scare you to death! It's got the government so panicked they've locked it away for thirty years in a hangar, tucked away in a far corner of the sinister Dugway Proving Grounds with orders to shoot to kill anyone who tries to get inside. But something's happening now, there are lights in the sky and death on the ground, and soon the whole world will understand THE OGDEN ENIGMA!
I'll quote a previous entry featuring this book's maps for some background on Ogden, Utah: "Before Roswell entered the popular imagination (and after an infamous VX gas leak that killed nearly 4,000 sheep) this was a likely location for Hangar 18 or similar skulduggery." Author Gene Snyder plays coy and writes his novel as based on a "true" personal experience, identical to the opening action where a mysterious student tells writer/professor Ted Lawrence a whale of a tale about that hangar outside Ogden. It's a cute meta structure as Lawrence and his sexy editor Cathy Seward workshop a novel based on their unfolding story.
Some of the cloak and dagger action feels like filler and the climax comes in a bullrush during the final 20 pages, but Snyder manages a tidy tale in just over 300 pages. The enigma is something from out there, and it's been here with us since the dawn of history. Our sick Cold War psychopolitics can only kill or coverup, stacking lie upon lie for fear of submission to truth.
For a solid conspiracy thriller, Snyder's The Ogden Enigma earns three mystery hangars out of four:
Playboy Press, 1980
Need to get my hands on Mind War.
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