The two stars are for the three short stories in this collection that I enjoyed...."Lucky" by Del Howison follows a female truck driver Ray, the tough life she has chosen and the somewhat sad ending makes for excellent reading."Roadkill" where our narrator is travelling home to wife and family in Chicago. It would appear he needs to hurry as she is fleeing the family nest and taking the children with her. Over the airwaves he meets a fellow trucker by the name of Buzzsaw and from this point the story goes in a rather bloody and horror filled direction. A great shock and unexpected turn of events makes for a superb conclusion. "A dark Road" by Ray Garton has a similar theme with a lonely trucker Spence "Sidewinder", passing the time conversing with fellow roadies over the airwaves...."C'mon truckers," the voice said. "I know you're out there. Traveling the highways like blood flowing through veins and arteries. That's what you are, you know, you're the blood in America's veins, you truckers. Somebody's gotta have their ears on out there somewhere. Come on back." He gets talking to a fellow night owl Sam Shephard and we soon realize that Spence is not quite the nice guy he might appear having committed a somewhat surprising act before leaving on his latest trip, and he begins to suspect that Sam Shephard knows a little too much. Rather than reveal anymore of the plot and conclusion I will only say that Ray Garton proves once again why he is a great horror writer and produces a fantastic story that is brilliant in both timing and execution!
So what we have are three excellent stories in a somewhat mediocre compilation. The book however does show how difficult, lonely and unusual the life of a trucker can be, with the beautiful CB language used by those kings of the road.
No comments:
Post a Comment