From School Library Journal
Grade 7-10-Predictable and stilted, this novel is definitely not a knockout. When hitchhiker Gordon Elder rescues a daughter-father trucker team from a hijacking, he becomes entangled in their business and personal lives. Megan and Clay Thornton have quit their association with Golden West Trucking, a shady firm for whom they deliver refrigerators, but the owner, a thug-turned-businessman, tries to coerce them into one last run for a huge bonus. Unknown to them, the refrigerators they haul are packed with drugs and laundered money. Clay is set up in a bowling alley/barroom brawl, is jailed, and held liable for the damages. Megan is faced with making the run to bail her father out, until Gordon comes to the rescue again and signs up for a local Wild Man boxing competition, winner take $1,500. The characters are not fleshed out or realistic. Stock villains like stereotypical bikers and meat-headed boxers bang heads with the hitchhiker with the heart of gold. This larger-than-life 17-year-old is able to knock out men who are 80 pounds heavier, crawl along the top of a truck moving at high speed, and help the FBI make the final bust. It's not enough that the story line involves drug smuggling and boxing; all clues indicate that Gordon Elder is actually some kind of intergalactic traveler. Characters, dialogue, and writing are straight from a grade-B gangster, boxing, or sci-fi movie.
Alice Casey Smith, Sayreville Public Schools, Parlin, NJ Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
