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.
Rating: 
Summary: A little disappointing
Review: Kerr has written some excellent novels (Berlin Noir etc.) but the characters were rather wooden and the plot took a while to get going in this story. Nevertheless the premise was a good one and the last half certainly improved
Rating: 
Summary: A lousy best-seller by a writer who usually is vastly better
Review: No basic aspect of the science in this book is right, altho Kerr captures some misc. details from Roger Lewin's book *Bones of Contention.* All sorts of specific "real" touches make it all the more frustrating that Kerr shows no understanding of how academia works, how grants, fieldwork and labs operate, or how evolutionary theory operates. I'd guess that after several brilliant books such as his "Berlin Trilogy" with anemic sales, Ker decided to churn out a potboiler which would pay off big-time. Let's hope this book finances a decade or two of outstanding books and does not scare educated readers away from Kerr's other books!
Rating:
Summary: Good read, but wait for the paperback
Review: Once I got about half-way through, I found the book to be quite a page-turner, but not before then. Given the research on the himalayas, mountain-climbing, and anthropology behind the book, I expected to find it more plausible, but frequently found myself doubting the believability of the story. I'm no expert on mountain-climbing or CIA operatives, but Kerr creates a pretty convincing portrait of the Himalayas as the most inhospitable place this side of Antarctica and then expects us to believe that an ape-like creature can survive there indefinitely. I felt like Kerr didnt' do all his research-- a little on ecology and the needs of animals at the top of a food chain would have helped. Plausibility aside, it was a pretty gripping narrative. Nonetheless, I think I'll stick with the American Michael Crichton
Rating:
Summary: Yes, it's a "thriller" but technically terrible.
Review: One star only because there's no "zero stars" option. As a requent traveller and climber, both in Yosemite and in Nepal, I was aghast at the inaccuracies which had absolutely no bearing on the story except to aggravate a knowledgeable reader. THE El Cap, in Yosemite? The Lammergeier a "small bird?" A Sherpa named Harke Gurung? Sahween? Changabang another name for K2? Khatmandu? I suggest that those familiar with climbing and with Nepal save their money.
Rating:
Summary: Not as good as Kerr's best
Review: Philip Kerr is a writer of undeniable skill, but in Esau, his novel combining an expedition in search of the Abominable Snowman with an espionage/thriller subplot, he stretches credulity to the limit and leaves the reader longing for a more coherent story and more believable characters. The hero, for example, in order to satisfy his curiosity about a change in funding recommended by the National Geographic Society for his proposed expedition, breaks into the headquarters building in downtown Washington, DC so that he can rummage through the office of one of the decision makers. Does Kerr really expect that readers will think that risking a felony B&E charge to satify one's curiosity is normal - or even OK? There's a lot of over the top stuff like this in the book, and it makes it hard to relate to. There is no question that Kerr is a writer of great talent in some ways. His prose is beautiful to the ear and he pulls off occasional passages as insightful and resonant as anything being written today. But Esau, taken as a whole, seems like a great idea gone awry.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful premise. Disappointing follow through
Review: The blurb on the book cover caught my eye. Evolution, science..cool. Tried to listen to the audio cassette-(horrible accents, major overacting etc)big mistake, but I was not ready to give up. So I read the book. Where was the real science? Where was the recent evolution theories, and why did they not just kill Jack off so there would be no more cliched language. I did not finish the book either, and I consider myself a voracious reader. However I know when to cut my losses.
Rating: 
Summary: Not a Thriller
Review: The book jacket contains wide acclaim for Esau. While the book is a good read, even a non-scientist like myself can see through the thinly veiled "scientific" descriptions of the novel. The plot is very loose and choppy. Incidents happen too obviously -- e.g., a mountian climber breaks into the National Geographic Building by climbing a sheer wall through an open window, a dead mountaineer from earlier in the story is found in a crevasse discovered by accident. The conversation is canned and the "thriller" aspects are sometimes interesting but not thrilling. Comparisons are made between Kerr and Michael Crichton on the book jacket. Actually, the novel seems closer to Jules Verne style knock off with the same interesting but now dated material -- think Journey to the Center of the Earth updated to the 1980s (yes, 1980s).
Rating:
Summary: Woof woof, whatta dawg!
Review: The jacket runs a Playboy review that claims Kerr to be Michael Crichton's smarter brother...well, Playboy has never been a hallmark of high tone intellect and in this case, Esau resembles the worst of Crichton...which is saying a great deal. What a shame, too, for Kerr's Berlin Noir trilogy has to be some of the BEST tough guy detective fiction ever written. Kerr either has decided to move away into a new genre (airplane snoozers) or the body snatchers have gotten to him. Avoid this dog of a read.
Rating:
Summary: Good concept, poor execution
Review: The premise of this book -- finding a genetic "link" between man and apes on a remote and dangerous mountainous region -- is fantastic and compelling. However, the characters in this story are disappointingly two dimensional. Occasionally, the plot took a few unrealistic turns that, although readable, did nothing to do justice to the book's premise. Worth a read, but buy it second-hand.
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