Blood Road [Paperback]

Amanda Peck dreams of one day leaving her pedestrian existence in Parry Sound, Ontario for life in the big city. Her wearisome job as a waitress at a truck stop, slinging hash while chatting with guys named Cookie, just isn't doing it for her anymore. Too, her live in boyfriend Ron Stinson, a one time up and coming hockey star who has since fallen into a pit of alcoholism and gambling, is wearing a little thin. When Amanda returns from work one day to find Ron again gambling away all of their money, she decides to strike out on her own. Leaving her trailer far behind, Peck hitchhikes out to the highway with only the haziest idea of where she is going. After accepting rides from a couple of truckers, Amanda decides that what she is doing is downright ridiculous and starts the trek back to the trailer. Big mistake. On the way home, Peck accepts a ride from Konrad Valeska, a repulsive yet somehow magnetic figure who drives a fancy black truck for a company called Tucana Northern. Amanda isn't in the truck for long at all before she realizes the folly of her situation. Valeska is a vampire who cruises the highways of Canada picking up hitchhikers so he can feed. He straps his latest recruit to a special table kept in his cab, feeding on her blood at his leisure through a needle and tube device. Valeska foregoes the usual bite method because he is old and his fangs are rotting (!).

Vampire Valeska possesses a few of the traits we usually associate with Dracula. He can hypnotize his victims, responds negatively to holy water and crosses, avoids the sunlight, and must feed on human blood to survive. That last item is where the whole trucking scheme fits into the picture. By constantly staying on the move, Valeska can abduct and dispose of bodies over a wide area, thus eluding the authorities in an age of instantaneous computer communications and wanted posters. The police are on to the vampire, though, as five bodies found on the side of the road bring in the local cops. The corpses, mysteriously drained of their life giving fluids and ravaged by wolves, present an ongoing threat. Constable Sharpe, the cop on the case who loves his coffee as much as he thrives on bringing in the bad guys, knows Canada has a serial killer on its hands. At least he thinks it's a serial killer until Amanda Peck escapes from her captor and tells her weird story to the disbelieving police and her doubtful boyfriend Ron. What follows could well give the young lady the title "Amanda Peck, Vampire Killer."

The best element of "Blood Road" is the whipsaw fast pacing. This book movies so fast for its 300+ pages that I felt like I read it in a couple of hours. You won't wait around for anything important to happen with this story. I liked the Canadian environment too although the tale could have just as easily unfolded in the United States. Regrettably, the good is too often marred by the bad. Plot holes so huge you could drive a truck through them (no pun intended) spring up throughout the book like noxious weeds. Perhaps the most noticeable moment when I went "huh?" occurred when Sharpe investigates the trucking company where Valeska works. The cop goes there, asks a bunch of questions, and learns Valeska will probably show up to load his truck at some point in the near future. Away goes Sharp, off to investigate another angle of the case, AND HE DOESN'T ASSIGN ANY POLICE OFFICERS TO WATCH THE TRUCKING COMPANY! And this is after he suspects Konrad's involvement in the unsolved murders. Sure enough, Valeska stops by the yard, commits a crime, and continues cruising on down the highway without a care in the world.

Still, I couldn't help but like the book despite this problem and a few others-like inadequate character development, the obsession with coffee, and the rather tame conclusion. I wouldn't pass up the opportunity to read another one of Edo Van Belkom's books in the future, but I fervently hope his other works avoid the problems found in this one.

And that about sums it up. This novel is too generic. This novel has about zero originality, from the stereotyped characters to the paint-by-numbers plot. If this were a movie, it would be one of those low-budget, late-night time-fillers that air in the wee hours hours on USA or SCI-FI.

Sharpe is a policeman who is looking for a serial killer. This killer drains his victims of their blood and dumps them by the highway. For some reason the bodies seem to get savaged by wolves.

Now Amanda finds herself captive of a short, fat, balding truck driver who claims to be a vampire. He uses medical equipment to drink blood from her arm.

Amanda must think quickly to try and outwit the vampire. Sharpe must get lucky to stop the body count from going up.

This is a wonderful story that starts fast and keeps going. You find yourself rooting for Amanda and Sharpe and even for Amanda's downbeat boyfriend who was slapped by reality when Amanda disappeared. I will not give away the ending but it did follow the ideas in the book and was quite satisfying.

If you like horror and/or vampires that don't fit previous stereotypes, this is one for you.