Book Review: Death Freaks on Hell’s Highway by Carl John Lee

Title: Death Freaks on Hell’s Highway

Author: Carl John Lee

Release date: July 22nd, 2023 on Godless, August 18th, 2023 on Amazon

UNCLE CARL is back!

Carl John Lee is an enigma. A time traveler. Living his life off the internet grid, off the social media highway, just existing enough to share that a new book is out and kindly replying when someone tags him in a review.

I’ve been fortunate to have developed a bit of a relationship with Carl since his debut ‘The Blood Beast Mutations’ was released and I’ve been lucky enough to have him to a cover for one of my novels (Incarnate).

But that doesn’t mean Carl doesn’t have any tricks up his perverted sleeve.

No, he surprised everyone by stealth releasing this, his newest piece of filth, just last Saturday, the 22nd of July. We’d had a few emails back and forth, with him asking me my thoughts on the Godless website, he was curious, and I swore up and down that it was the perfect home for Uncle Carl’s brand of voyeuristic debauchery. When I got an email from him saying – ‘hey, here’s my newest, it’s on Godless today,’ I was over the moon and once I was back home from our mini-vacation dove right in.

What I liked: ‘Death Freaks on Hell’s Highway’ is everything you would expect from a Carl release and more. We have horny men, horny women, dicks, pussy, tits, death, gore, sodomy, rape, cemetery filth, forced voyeurism, blood drinking, and slit throats. And that’s all in the first section of the book at the hotel.

We follow Roy and his wife Michelle, as Roy escorts her to a wellness retreat. Roy has severe PTSD from Vietnam. Michelle has some sort of complex mental condition where she blacks out, kills things and doesn’t remember it. After they pick up a hitchhiker, things go balls out as Michelle turns on her husband and joins forces with the hitchhiker, a man named Carter, who lives to kill and fuck. And kill. Leaving Roy for dead, they continue on to the aforementioned hotel, where blood is painted on every wall and semen almost follows after. Almost. But I won’t spoil the ‘why,’ and I don’t want to get ahead of myself. There’s a funny pun there, but you’ll have to read the book to understand it!

As the story goes on, we get a new female character with a mysterious backstory, who Roy uses to steal her car and continue on his way, trying to track down Carter and Michelle.

Look, the closet I can get to describing this is as though Rob Zombie released an NC17 version of The Devil’s Rejects, but before anyone was allowed to watch it, they had to do a bag of coke, wrap an elastic around their cock or have a vibrator shoved up their vagina turned on to full blast and then sit back and enjoy it.

It’s a lot to take in and a fucking great time while you’re entrenched in that world.

The ending is a two-parter, Roy’s storyline finishes as does the secondary female character. I’ll talk about that in a second, but with Roy’s part coming to an end, it was as fitting way for it to conclude and made for a gruesome adios.

What I didn’t like: Well, for other readers, this hits every single trigger warning well out of the park, so reader – enter at your own risk. Carl just may get himself cancelled with this one.

As for me – I had no care in the secondary character. She came, was there, and then her story returned at the end and was closed off. I don’t think she was necessary and other than adding in some grotesque kills, the story would’ve been just fine without her.

Why you should buy this: Carl John Lee writes the books that were the movies we all snuck back out to the living rooms after our parents went to sleep, to watch. They are the soundtrack to us kids born in the early eighties who loved Easy Rider just as much as Friday the 13th. We get fun characters, tons of T & A (and C for the ladies), and we get a story that is such a fun distraction from everything else, you just can’t help but smile.

I’m a huge fan of Carl John Lee and I’m hoping that with this one being his first entry into the Godless world, more extreme horror fans will find his work and discover a refreshing writer from a bygone period.

5/5

Available here on Godless as an ebook now;

Death Freaks on Hell's Highway by Carl John Lee

Amazon Kindle Preorder and Future Paperback link here;