{"product_id":"the-ruins-isbn-9780307390271","title":"The Ruins","description":"\u003cb\u003eNATIONAL BESTSELLER \u003c\/b\u003e• \u003cb\u003eTrapped in the Mexican jungle, a group of friends stumble upon a creeping horror  unlike anything they could ever imagine in \"the best horror novel of the new century\" (Stephen King). Also a major motion picture!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eTwo young couples are on a lazy Mexican  vacation—sun-drenched days, drunken nights, making friends with fellow tourists.  When the brother of one of those friends disappears, they decide to venture into  the jungle to look for him. What started out as a fun day-trip slowly spirals into  a nightmare when they find an ancient ruins site ... and the terrifying presence  that lurks there.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eThe Ruins\u003c\/i\u003e does for Mexican vacations what \u003ci\u003eJaws\u003c\/i\u003e did for New England beaches.” —\u003ci\u003eEntertainment Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“Smith’s nail-biting tension is a pleasure all its own.... This stuff isn’t for the faint of heart.” —\u003ci\u003eNew York Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“A story so scary you may never want to go on vacation, or dig around in your garden, again.” —\u003ci\u003eUSA Today\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"The best horror novel of the new century.\" \u003cb\u003e—Stephen King\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"\u003ci\u003eThe Ruins\u003c\/i\u003e does for Mexican vacations what \u003ci\u003eJaws\u003c\/i\u003e did for New England beaches.” \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eEntertainment Weekly\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “The most disturbing novel of the year.” \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eTime\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Smith’s nail-biting tension is a pleasure all its own. . . . This stuff isn’t for the faint of heart.” \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eNew York Post\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “A story so scary you may never want to go on vacation, or dig around in your garden, again.” \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eUSA Today\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “A smart, clean-burning horror machine.” \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “A classic horror story, told with mounting, detail. Smith spins it out relentlessly, piling chill on chill on chill. . . . What happens, and needless to say it’s not good, is something readers will race page after flapping page to discover. When they do, they will find–well, better set aside eight or nine hours reading time, keep the lights on, and make sure the plants are still in their pots.”\u003cb\u003e —Bill Bell, \u003ci\u003eThe Daily News\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “A fast-paced suspense novel that grabs you and refuses to let go. . . Smith’s characterization and timing–the ability to deliver one quick blow after antoher–makes the book so freakishly fun. . . . The story turns grotesque, but Smith’s command of his characters and their demons is masterful. . . . \u003ci\u003eThe Ruins\u003c\/i\u003e is chilling, an icy dissection of human nature in a hot, horrifying place.” \u003cb\u003e—John Caniglia, \u003ci\u003eThe Cleveland Plain Dealer\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “An exercise in unremitting tension . . . Smith writes in clear, vivid language with elegant sentences.” \u003cb\u003e—Diane Scharper, \u003ci\u003eThe Baltimore Sun\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “One of the most terrifying, creepy, riveting novels that will hit the bookstores this summer. . . . Smith sculpts each of the characters, making us care very much about what happens to these young, naive and sometimes selfish individuals. . . . \u003ci\u003eThe Ruins\u003c\/i\u003e has a claustrophobic feel, which adds to the palpatations of suspense. The great outdoors might as well be a dark, dingy basement full of things that go bump in the night as Smith finds new ways to frighten with his setting.” \u003cb\u003e—Oline H. Cogdill, \u003ci\u003eThe Sun-Sentinel\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Reading Scott Smith is like having a rope tied firmly round your middle, as you’re pulled on protesting tiptoes toward a door marked DOOM. . . . Smith is a master of the ‘if only’ scenario, that most foolish and pungent form of regret . . . At its heart, \u003ci\u003eThe Ruins\u003c\/i\u003e is an old-fashioned horror story, and it’s the invasive, intuitive killer that provides the ice-water dread. . . . It’s Thomas Harris meets Poe in a decidedly timely story: Smith has tapped into our anxieties about global warming, lethal weather, supergerms–our collective fear that nature is finally battling back–and given us a decidedly organic nightmare. Grade: A-. \u003cb\u003e—Gillian Flynn, \u003ci\u003eEntertainment Weekly\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Once again, Smith (\u003ci\u003eA Simple Plan\u003c\/i\u003e) deftly explores psychological tension and insidious fears. A perfect beach read; just don’t stray too far from the lifeguard.” \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “A word of caution to readers, gentle and otherwise: Do not pick up a copy of Scott Smith’s \u003ci\u003eThe Ruins\u003c\/i\u003e if you have anything else you need to do in the next eight hours or so. Don’t start this book if you’re especially weak of stomach or nerves, and above all don’t pick it up if you’re not willing to tolerate some deviation from the usual conventions of thrillers and horror stories. . . . \u003ci\u003eThe Ruins\u003c\/i\u003e is like all great genre fiction in its irresistible storytelling momentum, but in its lack of mercy, it’s more like real life. . . . \u003ci\u003eThe Ruins\u003c\/i\u003e is ruthlessly frank about how most of us really behave in extremis. The escalating nightmare of the group’s fate evolves inexorably from their personalities, in a way reminiscent of Greek tragedy, so Smith couldn’t get away with the flimsy figurines that populate more genre fiction. In \u003ci\u003eThe Ruins\u003c\/i\u003e, all of the characters and their vexed interrrelationships are richly and carefully drawn because, in a way, \u003ci\u003ethey\u003c\/i\u003e are the story. . . . Scott Smith shows us an aspect of ourselves and of human nature we’d rather not acknowledge. He’s such a master, though, that it’s impossible to look away. \u003cb\u003e—Laura Miller, \u003ci\u003eSalon\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003eScott Smith was educated at Dartmouth College and Columbia University. He lives in New York City.\u003c\/p\u003eThey met Mathias on a day trip to Cozumel. They'd hired a guide to   take them snorkeling over a local wreck, but the buoy marking its   location had broken off in a storm, and the guide was having   difficulty finding it. So they were just swimming about, looking at   nothing in particular. Then Mathias rose toward them from the depths,   like a merman, a scuba tank on his back. He smiled when they told him   their situation, and led them to the wreck. He was German, dark from   the sun, and very tall, with a blond crew cut and pale blue eyes. He   had a tattoo of an eagle on his right forearm, black with red wings.   He let them take turns borrowing his tank so they could drop down   thirty feet and see the wreck up close. He was friendly in a quiet   way, and his English was only slightly accented, and when they pulled   themselves into their guide's boat to head back to shore, he climbed   in, too.They met the Greeks two nights later, back in Cancun, on the beach   near their hotel. Stacy got drunk and made out with one of them.   Nothing happened beyond that, but the Greeks always seemed to be   turning up afterward, no matter where they went or what they were   doing. None of them spoke Greek, of course, and the Greeks didn't   speak English, so it was mostly smiling and nodding and the   occasional sharing of food or drinks. There were three Greeks—in   their early twenties, like Mathias and the rest of them—and they   seemed friendly enough, even if they did appear to be following them   about.The Greeks not only didn't know English; they couldn't speak Spanish,   either. They'd adopted Spanish names, though, which they seemed to   find very amusing. Pablo and Juan and Don Quixote was how they   introduced themselves, saying the names in their odd accents and   gesturing at their chests. Don Quixote was the one Stacy made out   with. All three looked enough alike, however—wide-shouldered and   slightly padded, with their dark hair grown long and tied back in   ponytails—that even Stacy had a hard time keeping track of who was   who. It also seemed possible that they were trading the names around,   that this was part of the joke, so the one who answered to Pablo on   Tuesday would smilingly insist on Wednesday that he was Juan.They were visiting Mexico for three weeks. It was August, a foolish   time to travel to the Yucatán. The weather was too hot, too humid.   There were sudden rainstorms nearly every afternoon, downpours that   could flood a street in a matter of seconds. And with darkness, the   mosquitoes arrived, vast humming clouds of them. In the beginning,   Amy complained about all these things, wishing they'd gone to San   Francisco, which had been her idea. But then Jeff lost his temper,   telling her she was ruining it for everyone else, and she stopped   talking about California—the bright, brisk days, the trolley cars,   the fog rolling in at dusk. It wasn't really that bad anyway. It was   cheap and uncrowded, and she decided to make the best of it.There were four of them in all: Amy and Stacy and Jeff and Eric. Amy   and Stacy were best friends. They'd cut their hair boyishly short for   the trip, and they wore matching Panama hats, posing for photos arm   in arm. They looked like sisters—Amy the fair one, Stacy the   dark—both of them tiny, barely five feet tall, birdlike in their   thinness. They were sisterly in their behavior, too, full of   whispered secrets, wordless intimacies, knowing looks.Jeff was Amy's boyfriend; Eric was Stacy's. The boys were friendly   with each other, but not exactly friends. It had been Jeff's idea to   travel to Mexico, a last fling before he and Amy started medical   school in the fall. He'd found a good deal on the Internet: cheap,   impossible to pass up. It would be three lazy weeks on the beach,   lying in the sun, doing nothing. He'd convinced Amy to come with him,   then Amy had convinced Stacy, and Stacy had convinced Eric.Mathias told them that he'd come to Mexico with his younger brother,   Henrich, but Henrich had gone missing. It was a confusing story, and   none of them understood all the details. Whenever they asked him   about it, Mathias became vague and upset. He slipped into German and   waved his hands, and his eyes grew cloudy with the threat of tears.   After awhile, they didn't ask anymore; it felt impolite to press.   Eric believed that drugs were somehow involved, that Mathias's   brother was on the run from the authorities, but whether these   authorities were German, American, or Mexican, he couldn't say for   certain. There'd been a fight, though; they all agreed upon this.   Mathias had argued with his brother, perhaps even struck him, and   then Henrich had disappeared. Mathias was worried, of course. He was   waiting for him to return so that they could fly back to Germany.   Sometimes he seemed confident that Henrich would eventually reappear   and that all would be fine in the end, but other times he didn't.   Mathias was reserved by nature, a listener rather than a talker, and   prone in his present situation to sudden bouts of gloom. The four of   them worked hard to cheer him up. Eric told funny stories. Stacy did   her imitations. Jeff pointed out interesting sights. And Amy took   countless photographs, ordering everyone to smile.In the day, they sunned on the beach, sweating beside one another on   their brightly colored towels. They swam and snorkeled; they got   burned and began to peel. They rode horses, paddled around in kayaks,   played miniature golf. One afternoon, Eric convinced them all to rent   a sailboat, but it turned out he wasn't as adept at sailing as he'd   claimed, and they had to be towed back to the dock. It was   embarrassing, and expensive. At night, they ate seafood and drank too   much beer.Eric didn't know about Stacy and the Greek. He'd gone to sleep after   dinner, leaving the other three to wander the beach with Mathias.   There'd been a bonfire burning behind one of the neighboring hotels,   a band playing in a gazebo. That was where they met the Greeks. The   Greeks were drinking tequila and clapping in rhythm with the music.   They offered to share the bottle. Stacy sat next to Don Quixote, and   there was much talking, in their mutually exclusive languages, and   much laughter, and the bottle passed back and forth, everyone wincing   at the burning taste of the liquor, and then Amy turned and found   Stacy embracing the Greek. It didn't last very long. Five minutes of   kissing, a shy touch of her left breast, and the band was finished   for the night. Don Quixote wanted her to go back to his room, but she   smiled and shook her head, and it was over as easily as that.In the morning, the Greeks laid out their towels alongside Mathias   and the four of them on the beach, and in the afternoon they all went   jet skiing together. You wouldn't have known about the kissing if you   hadn't seen it; the Greeks were very gentlemanly, very respectful.   Eric seemed to like them, too. He was trying to get them to teach him   dirty words in Greek. He was frustrated, though, because it was hard   to tell if the words they were teaching him were the ones he wanted   to learn.It turned out that Henrich had left a note. Mathias showed it to Amy   and Jeff early one morning, during the second week of their vacation.   It was handwritten, in German, with a shakily drawn map at the   bottom. They couldn't read the note, of course; Mathias had to   translate it for them. There wasn't anything about drugs or the   police—that was just Eric being Eric, jumping to conclusions, the   more dramatic the better. Henrich had met a girl on the beach. She'd   flown in that morning, was on her way to the interior, where she'd   been hired to work on an archaeological dig. It was at an old mining   camp, maybe a silver mine, maybe emeralds—Mathias wasn't certain.   Henrich and the girl had spent the day together. He'd bought her   lunch and they'd gone swimming. Then he took her back to his room,   where they showered and had sex. Afterward, she left on a bus. In the   restaurant, over lunch, she'd drawn a map for him on a napkin,   showing him where the dig was. She told him he should come, too, that   they'd be glad for his help. Once she left, Henrich couldn't stop   talking about her. He didn't eat dinner and he couldn't fall asleep.   In the middle of the night, he sat up in bed and announced to Mathias   that he was going to join the dig.Mathias called him a fool. He'd only just met this girl, they were in   the midst of their vacation, and he didn't know the first thing about   archaeology. Henrich assured him that it was really none of his   business. He wasn't asking for Mathias's permission; he was merely   informing him of his decision. He climbed out of bed and started to   pack. They called each other names, and Henrich threw an electric   razor at Mathias, hitting him on the shoulder. Mathias rushed him,   knocking him over. They rolled around on the hotel room floor,   grappling, grunting obscenities, until Mathias accidentally   head-butted Henrich in the mouth, cutting his lip. Henrich made much   of this, rushing to the bathroom so that he could spit blood into the   sink. Mathias pulled on some clothes and went out to get him ice, but   then ended up going downstairs to the all-night bar by the pool. It   was three in the morning. Mathias felt he needed to calm down. He   drank two beers, one quickly, the other slowly. When he got back to   their room, the note was sitting on his pillow. And Henrich was gone.The note was three-quarters of a page long, though it seemed shorter   when Mathias read it out loud in English. It occurred to Amy that   Mathias might be skipping some of the passages, preferring to keep   them private, but it didn't matter—she and Jeff got the gist of it.   Henrich said that Mathias often seemed to mistake being a brother   with being a parent. He forgave him for this, yet he still couldn't   accept it. Mathias might call him a fool, but he believed it was   possible he'd met the love of his life that morning, and he'd never   be able to forgive himself—or Mathias, for that matter—if he let   this opportunity slip past without pursuing it. He'd try to be back   by their departure date, though he couldn't guarantee this. He hoped   Mathias would manage to have fun on his own while he was gone. If   Mathias grew lonely, he could always come and join them at the dig;   it was only a half day's drive to the west. The map at the bottom of   the note—a hand-drawn copy of the one the girl had sketched on the   napkin for Henrich—showed him how to get there.As Amy listened to Mathias tell his story and then struggle to   translate his brother's note, she gradually began to realize that he   was asking for their advice. They were sitting on the veranda of   their hotel. A breakfast buffet was offered here every morning: eggs   and pancakes and French toast, juice and coffee and tea, an immense   pile of fresh fruit. A short flight of stairs led to the beach.   Seagulls hovered overhead, begging for scraps of food, shitting on   the umbrellas above the tables. Amy could hear the steady sighing of   the surf, could see the occasional jogger shuffling past, an elderly   couple searching for shells, a trio of hotel employees raking the   sand. It was very early, just after seven. Mathias had awakened them,   calling from the house phone downstairs. Stacy and Eric were still   asleep.Jeff leaned forward to study the map. It was clear to Amy, without   anything explicit having been said, that it was his advice Mathias   was soliciting. Amy didn't take offense; she was used to this sort of   thing. Jeff had something about him that made people trust him, an   air of competence and self-confidence. Amy sat back in her seat and   watched him smooth the wrinkles from the map with the palm of his   hand. Jeff had curly, dark hair, and eyes that changed color with the   light. They could be hazel or green or the palest of brown. He wasn't   as tall as Mathias, or as broad in the shoulders, but despite this,   he somehow seemed to be the larger of the two. He had a gravity to   him: he was calm, always calm. Someday, if all went according to   plan, Amy imagined that this would be what would make him a good   doctor. Or, at the very least, what would make people think of him as   a good doctor.Mathias's leg was jiggling, his knee jumping up and down. It was   Wednesday morning. He and his brother were scheduled to fly home on   Friday afternoon. \"I go,\" he said. \"I get him. I take him home.   Right?\"Jeff glanced up from the map. \"You'd be back this evening?\" he asked.Mathias shrugged, waved at the note. He only knew what his brother had written.Amy recognized some of the towns on the map—Tizimín, Valladolid,   Cobá—names she'd seen in their guidebook. She hadn't really read the   book; she'd only looked at the pictures. She remembered a ruined   hacienda on the Tizimín page, a street lined with whitewashed   buildings for Valladolid, a gigantic stone face buried in vines for   Cobá. Mathias's map had an X drawn somewhere vaguely west of Cobá.   This was where the dig was. You rode a bus from Cancún to Cobá, where   you hired a taxi, which took you eleven miles farther west. Then   there was a path leading away from the road, two miles long, that you   had to hike. If you came to the Mayan village, you'd gone too far.Watching Jeff examine the map, she could guess what he was thinking.   It had nothing to do with Mathias or his brother. He was thinking of   the jungle, of the ruins there, and what it might be like to explore   them. They'd talked vaguely of doing this when they'd first arrived:   how they could hire a car, a local guide, and see whatever there was   to be seen. But it was so hot; the idea of trudging through the   jungle to take pictures of giant flowers or lizards or crumbling   stone walls seemed less and less attractive the more they discussed   it. So they stayed on the beach. But now? The morning was deceptively   cool, with a breeze coming in off the water; she knew that it must be   hard for Jeff to remember how humid the day would ultimately become.  Yes, it was easy enough for her to guess what he was thinking: \u003ci\u003ewhy shouldn't it be fun?\u003c\/i\u003e  They were slipping into a torpor, with all the sun and the food and the drinking.  A little adventure like this might be just the thing to wake them up.","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302336909541,"sku":"NP9780307390271","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780307390271.jpg?v=1767741292","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-ruins-isbn-9780307390271","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}