Murder on Route 66

Rating:
Summary: A mother lode of tales from the Mother Road
Review: A generation of Americans is just beginning to learn about "the Mother Road," U.S. Route 66, that cruised from Chicago through to Los Angeles.

The premise of this anthology is along that stretch of highway, murder and mayhem once lurked.

Sixteen writers ply their trade with varying levels of success. And though none of the stories are stinkers, three really stand out:

"Rappin' Dog" by Dick Lochte pits a precocious 14-year-old girl/would-be detective against her elders in a mystery plot right out of MTV. When one of a rapper's hangers-on tells her "I take you to be some kind of Spice Girl wannabe," Serendipity (Sarah to her friends) coolly replies "Then you'd be making a mistake." She also catches the errors the police and her detective friend makes.

"Motel 66" by Barbara D'Amato is a classic tale of domestic discord with a smoothly twisted ending that *I* didn't see coming.

Reading "Spooked" by Carolyn G. Hart is like finding a fine old pulp magazine -- Black Mask or something similar -- tucked away in your father's chest. A neat little World War II story, and Hart manages to work in a recipe for apple pie which uses honey instead of the then-rationed sugar.

All told, a nostalgic trip down memory lane on a highway that itself is fast-becoming a memory. Recommended!

Rating:
Summary: Milage May Vary
Review: Kind of a nifty idea at work here, an anthology of sixteen murder stories set along America's most famous--and mythologized--road. To further the conceit, all the authors lived in towns along the road at one point in their lives, and thus presumably bring a little more of themselves to the stories. Of course most of the stories are set in the past, prior to the pervasiveness of the modern interstate system, and tend to fetishize various old cars.

As with most anthologies, the quality is fairly variable, and favorites are highly dependent on personal tastes. I found "Rappin' Dog," by Dick Lochte to be the best of the lot, featuring a smart and precocious adolescent girl detective-in-training. A close second is Barbara D'Amato's predictable, but still highly effective, "Motel 66." Les Roberts' post-WWII tale, "Willing To Work" is a deftly nasty story, although the murder's undoing is a bit too obvious to make the reversal totally satisfying. Carolyn Hart's WWII-era story about a couple of nosy kids and some black-marketeers is kind of neat in a strictly period piece way. David August's "Blind Corner" is yet another period story featuring a nosy kid who thwarts the bad guy. David August's Vietnam-era set story takes a basic noir story of adultery, murder, and double-crossing and situates it so that it fits the anthology. Doris Merideth's "Incident on 6th Street" features a cliché crotchety old woman narrator whose Depression-era story is somewhat undone by her annoying delivery.

As for the rest, Judith Van Cieson's "Dead Man's Curve" plods along rather boringly to a kind of tame payoff, while J.A. Jance, Eleanor Taylor Bland, Lillian Roberts, Michael Allen Dymmoch, Gary Phillips, Earlene Fowler, John Lutz, and editor Wheat all deliver fairly unmemorable stories. Your mileage may vary.

Rating:
Summary: some are better than others
Review: Overall these stories were great. The ones that really stuck to route 66 were the best. A couple just mentioned the road. I doubt these short stories gave justice to some of the authors. J.A. Jance is a much better writer than this book shows. Most of the stories have twists at the end. It was fun to guess the ending, but I was wrong about 1/2 the time.