Death, apparently, is also a highway.

20. The Brotherhood of the Wheel – R.S. Belcher

As I have mentioned on this blog before, Interstate 55 and I are best friends, as much as one interstate and one experienced driver can be. I know the majority of that road by heart and I do miss it sometimes. Driving is something I do quite like to do and it’s fun to be able to navigate the entire way down the country, including all the confusing little twists and turns in big cities, without needing a GPS. I do not need one on I-55. For these reasons, a gritty urban fantasy series about highways and those who protect them is very, very appealing to me.

And the first entry in this one has a lot of great elements – serial killer truckstop diner set piece, an antler wearing scary thing, ghostly hitchhikers, annoying hipsters, a very impressive crone, a fun Louisiana State Police Investigator, a motorcycle riding madman, oh, and much driving. This was just ridiculously fun to read.

There’s a lot of information and quite a lot to take in as far as things like backstory that main character Jimmie Aussapile does not want to explain because honor and integrity are as important to him as family; however, the overall tale is very cinematic and it’s well worth the time taken to read each little chunk of explanation. They’re clearly there for a reason as there is a sequel which may or may not involve fighting with the forces of nature again. Yeah, they went big in the first one.

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Danger Crumples was also very familiar with I-55, investigating the mysterious, and being epic, so this book works for him.

70. King of the Road – R. S. Belcher

So, there’s a nice shout out to the Britt, Iowa, National Hobo Museum in the second book of this series, King of the Road. The Gathering of the Juggalos is also mentioned. As is a transgender were-bear. At the beginning, children who were going to be trafficked are saved. Other children run from nearly immortal clowns. A class war seems to be a-brewing between the Brethren who do all the work and the Builders who seem pretty smug. Heck finally gets a girlfriend and a dog. So once again, a lot of ground is covered.

As someone who very much straddles the line between the smug researcher type who knows perhaps too much at times and the very functional on the ground worker bee, I am really looking forward to seeing where this series is going, regardless of whether or not I am on board with all the musical choices.

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Danger Crumples also hopes they’ll move a little further away from clowns in the next one. Perhaps reanimated roadkill zombies would be more pleasant. When I was driving cross country more, I did refer to a certain time of the year as “Carcass Season,” although it may have been more prescient for me since my hometown has an animal rendering plant. If they all reanimated, the devastation would be terrible. And pungent.