The Last Professional

by Ed Davis, Colin Elgie

American Fiction Award -  New Mexico, Arizona Fiction Award -   NYC Big Book Audio Fiction. A hobo, a wanderer, a madman; three characters hurtling toward a heart-wrenching climax where their way of life, and their lives, hang in the balance.These freights let you ride, they don't let you go!Lynden Hoover, a young man on the brink of a new beginning, cannot embrace it without confronting the traumas of his past. Help comes from The Duke, an old loner who calls America' s landscape his home. He clings to an honor code, but in fleeing from Short Arm, his merciless enemy, his code is being tested. The Duke mentors Lynden, enlisting old traveling friends to keep himself and his apprentice just ahead of Short Arm' s relentless pursuit. When two of those friends are murdered, the stakes become life or death.Bonds are formed, secrets exposed, sacrifices made, trusts betrayed; all against a breathtaking American landscape of promise and peril. Three unforgettable characters, hurtling toward a spellbinding climax where pasts and futures collide, and lives hang in the balance.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Thriller, Historical

279 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 25, 2022

About the author

Ed Davis began his writing career forty years ago, pausing in boxcars, under streetlamps and in hobo jungles to record the beats and rhythms of the road as he caught freight trains and vagabonded around the Pacific Northwest and Canada.

In the decades since, while his destinations and modes of travel may have changed, his quest to capture the essence of the traveling experience has remained true. He lives in Glen Ellen, California with his wife Jan.

His next novel, "The Last Professional" is due for release from Artemesia Publishing in January of 2022!

Reviews

[Cathy Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5*
When I was contacted by Nick Fontaine with regard to a review of The Last Professional, I wasn’t at all sure it was my kind of book but I’m happy to say I was quite wrong. It didn’t take long for me to become invested in the story and the characters. Set in 1970s America, The Last Professional is an intriguing and engrossing tale of a vanishing lifestyle — life as a hobo, riding freight trains across the country and living free, with the related privations and dangers.

Lynden Hoover, a young man with the opportunity of a new beginning at a fast growing tech company in California, first needs to resolve issues from his childhood. When he was eleven years old and looking for a substitute father figure an old tramp had filled that void for a while, but then the tramp had all but abducted him and kept him in a boxcar for three weeks before letting him go. The boy felt as abandoned as he had when his dad left, despite the circumstances. The tramp had stayed with Lyndon since then, the thought of not fighting back haunting him. After a scene at work he left and wondered if he could find the tramp again and somehow punish him for what he’d done.

Lyndon teamed up with the Duke, an old timer, or ‘Profesh’ as he’s known to the other hobos, who had spent most of his life riding the trains but was now desperately trying to evade Short Arm, an erstwhile friend of sorts who is on his trail with murder in mind. Along the way the Duke shares his knowledge of the hobo lifestyle with Lyndon and pretty soon they formed a fast friendship.

A very well written and nostalgic, character driven tale, rich in detail, full of drama, with lots of dialogue between the two main protagonists and those they meet along the way, giving an in depth look into the life of a hobo, as well as a bygone era. And life on the tracks is so unpredictable so there’s always that sense of suspense and tension, especially since it’s written as if it’s happening in the present. Something completely different for me and I enjoyed it very much.

[Jim Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Realistic book covering a topic we realte more to the 20's through the 50's - hobos riding railcars. This is the first full book I've read on this and it was exceptional. Kept my attention through most of the book - only a short part in the earlier chapters that seemed to run on. Tells the joys and dangers of the life they had. Two key characters - The Duke (been a Hobo most of his life and riding trains for decades) and Lynden Hoover a computer programmer who gave up his lucerative job and met and joined The Duke. The two main characters and most of the supporting characters are so well developed and described it draws you into the story more than in most books. The reader will feel many emotions as they read - from anger to joy to sorrow. The setting was as it was becomming more and more difficult to ride the trains. As it says in the authors notes, though there will be fewer and fewer hobos riding trains, there will be and are some still today.

[Steve Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well written tale of Hobo mythology. It is suspenseful and draws the reader into a world of railroad yards and Hobo camps. It is an education into a era that has past. Riding the rails was it's own subculture in the first half of the twentieth century. The author captures the thrill, beauty, and suffering of a life on the steel ribbons.
Based on the author's own experiences and devotion to learning the lore and the legends of hopping freights the story captures the reader. Immersing the mind into a world both real and surreal as the realistic telling blends eras. The narrative keeps the reader eager to see this journey to the end. The characters each have their own personal journeys. Haunted by their pasts they reveal themselves as the world rolls by. Definitely a good read -- I also bought the print edition the illustrations are a nice bonus to the words.

[BookTrib.com]

In Ed Davis's rousing historical thriller, THE LAST PROFESSIONAL, the essence of the American journey is captured with the type of elegance that'll leave #readers breathless!

Read the full review on BookTrib.com

[raymond g. berube · Rating 5 out of 5]

AMAZING WRITING

Davis paints fascinating people and wonderful landscapes with words. The Lasts Professional will remain memorable and I look forward to his other works.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary: A young man trying to find the tramp who assaulted him as an adolescent catches a freight and meets an old hobo running from a killer and the two form a friendship around the lure of riding the freights.

Lyndon works as a gifted programmer at a California tech firm in the early ’80’s. When an obnoxious boss attempts to sexually assault him, something snaps. He eludes the man, quits his job and hops a freight at the Roseville yard. It’s not the first time. The last was fifteen years ago as a twelve year old when “The Tramp” pulled him aboard the freight stopped behind his home as it started up. He’d seen and talked to him many times, a substitute for the father who had abandoned him. But this time was different–he was assaulted for two weeks. The author captures his ambivalence–someone who paid attention but forced himself upon him. He remembered his smell, and the distinctive, fist-shaped buckle he wore. Then he literally dumped him. But “The Tramp” never left him. And when he hops the train, he begins to wonder if he can find “The Tramp” and. . . .

Lyndon discovers he’s not alone. There’s an old hobo on the train–calls himself The Duke. Where Lyndon is trying to find someone, The Duke is running from someone. Someone from his past. He’d barely escaped him in the Colton jungle (the encampment of hobos), when Short Arm left another man dead. He was there when Short arm that name–a arm lost in a train accident–and The Duke left him for dead. Short Arm doesn’t leave anyone alive who crosses him, including two of The Duke’s friends who lie about The Duke’s whereabouts. Their paths crisscross throughout the book and The Duke knows Short Arm will find him. It’s only a matter of time

Lyndon (now nicknamed “Frisco Lyndy”) and The Duke travel, The Duke orienting him to the life of a hobo. He’s a “Profesh,” one of the last of a breed, with a code of his own and a knowledge of every yard, jungle, and good place to eat cheaply in the country. He schools Lyndon on eluding the “bulls,” the yard security, and the ins and outs of riding every kind of car and how to avoid getting killed. More than that, they just talk about life, and the draw of the freights. The Duke tells him, “These freights let you ride. They don’t let you go.”

They talk about the man Lyndon is trying to find and the man The Duke is running from. The belt buckle identifies The Tramp as a Johnson, a group of outlaw hobos that one has to kill someone to be part of. Short Arm is also a Johnson. The Duke, partly out of protectiveness, suggests that the two couldn’t be the same person. Short Arm is the last of the Johnson’s. But Lyndon wonders. And at any rate, he won’t abandon The Duke. The Duke is the only man who hasn’t abandoned or hurt him.

In some ways, this is the railroad equivalent of Kerouac’s On The Road. The two get into scrapes and adventures as they cross the country. What separates it from Kerouac is two things. One is the friendship that forms between these two men, and the other is that Davis captures for us the hobo’s life. The narrative is broken up with numbered “Tracks” (e.g. Track #10) that are conversations on various subjects from our illusions of safety to sex to death.

Ed Davis has served up a story that builds to a powerful ending, an unusual friendship between a younger and older man, and a description of a life that is mostly in the historical past (though this article suggests there are still a few riding the rails). The illustrations by Colin Elgie both fit and created the images formed by the story in my head. I had a tough time putting it down.

____________________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher via LibraryThing’s Early Reviewer Program in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

[Alexander · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ed Davis’ new book The Last Professional is the classic kind of reading experience that conjures up a different time. In the eyes of many, literarily speaking - a better time. A time when there was room for a little charm and elegance, and a sense of innocent modern day swashbuckling that introduced to us authors like Hunter S. Thompson and Jack London. The kind of popular, literary lions who were as revered for their storytelling finesse as they were for their overriding tonalities. Davis proves himself to be a worthy, twenty-first century update and addition to this league of writers, The Last Professional boasting something of a throwback vibe with respect to its description of setting and characters. Yet by the same token, the read feels fresh and contemporary with respect to outlook, pace, and creative choices. The kind of woodenness that plagues even the best kind of writer generations ahead is expertly expunged here - making Last Professional that much more compelling in its genre hybridization. The book reads like an amalgam of adventure and drama, with a touch of Cormac McCarthy-esque neo-noir. With a modern sense of objectivity and removal, it looks back upon a time when the world was wide, and daily life depending on one’s socioeconomic circumstances could literally be death-defying. This kind of narrative finesse likely comes from elements present in Davis’ own life through the years. He was something of a beatnik in his early days, riding trains throughout Canada and the Pacific Northwest, a shameless vagabond picking up inspiration with respect to the places, people, and encounters he had. The result is a fluidity coming off each page, a sort of expert self-assuredness that Davis is never stretching himself or becoming tangential in order to make a point. He knows the nature of the characters he depicts through and through. There’s never a sense of hesitation or recalcitrance.

This kind of confidence is also present in how the book is put together structurally. Whereas a lot of writers get lost in the words themselves, Davis never spares the rod. He relentlessly trims the hypothetical fat that could slow down the plot. There’s a sort of no-nonsense nature to the storytelling. Never a sense of urgency, but a sense Davis is showing the reader everything they need to know, and not much else. This kind of literary claustrophobia places the reader right in the heart of the action with these characters, never allowing you to become too comfortable. There’s an undertone of strong suspense, even in moments of levity because of the unpredictable nature of the characters’ respective situations. You’re experiencing their story minute-by-minute, in realtime just like they would be if they were real people. It makes every turn of the page that much more of a necessity, as Davis is never one to jump ahead or backward in time. You’re with these characters, on their journey, as the time literally goes by second to second. For many avid readers, this kind of tactic will prove to be infectious fun. To the uninitiated or the superficial, it might just be torture!

[Jennifer Bohnhoff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lynden Hoover looks like an American success story. He works at a fast growing California tech company and has more money than he can spend. But when he was eleven years old and his father had left, he fell in with an abusive old hobo. Years later, the trauma is still ripping him apart. When a superior at work makes advances, Lyndon flees, going back to the rails in search of the old hoto. Lucky for him, he comes in contact with a better man. The Duke guides Landon into understanding and healing while the two evade another rider of the rails, a violent, insane man named Short Arm. In Lynden's story the reader gets to enter into a world that has faded away: a tawdry world filled with both violence and freedom. This award-winning book, like the freights themselves. will let you ride, but it won't let you go until you've finished its stunning conclusion.

[Keith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bought this on the Great Whistle-stop Tour while traveling to Colorado. Excellent story, well written, and really thought-provoking. Mr. Davis clearly understands the environment associated with riding the rails and has a deep grasp of his nontraditional characters. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

[Jack E. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exceptional writing. Obviously, an author who has spent years mastering his craft. Tells the story of a bygone era and individuals long forgotten in a compelling and suspenseful manner. I always enjoy novels that take me to places and time periods that I would not know or understand, creating a unique world and characters with which I can empathize. I found the story enlightening and the ending satisfying. I am definitely on board for more Ed Davis novels.

[Sean Rosekrans · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hobo

I normally do not read fiction. I was sucked in by the railroad aspect of the story. Compelling description of life of the hobo riding the rails. Hardship and friendship. Codes the all lived by.

[Gilion Dumas · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Last Professional is a novel about the last days of jumping trains and living on the road. It is the well-told story of Lynden Hoover, a young man fleeing his past who teams up with an old loner called The Duke. An enemy from The Duke’s past pursues them, things turn deadly, and the story rolls out against an American landscape bounded by railroad tracks.

Set in the late 1970s, driven by plenty of dialog and action, The Last Professional is a nostalgia-tinged, old-fashioned page turner, sure to please any reader who enjoys a good yarn.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the story of two hobos, one a professional and a loner, the other started out to search for someone or some meaning in his life. Not sure when this takes place, but based on descriptions it is not current but probably some forty or so years ago. I enjoyed the story, fantasizing about the riding the rails when I was a kid. The story flowed with some sub plots and came to a satisfying conclusion. It kept me captivated throughout.

[Literary Reviewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lynden Hoover is unhappy. He’s a rising star computer programmer placed in a position where he feels he must escape. Bullied by his new boss, Lynden packs a backpack of supplies and disappears the only way he knows how– an empty boxcar on an eastbound train.

The Last Professional by Ed Davis follows Lynden as he escapes his life as a computer programmer and goes in search of The Tramp, who kidnapped and abused him on the rails as a child. Lynden meets The Duke, who shows him the ropes of riding in boxcars across the country, though The Duke has his own problems to deal with. A former friend and fellow hobo named Short Arm is after The Duke. Together, Lynden and The Duke traverse the rails to try and stay one step ahead of Short Arm.

Davis takes the reader into the gritty, unpredictable world of hobos, hiding in boxcars and spending nights in jungles, where they could get a bite to eat and maybe a shave. As the old days die away, these hobos must adjust to a world of bulls protecting train yards and fewer and fewer empty boxcars. Professionals, or Profesh, as they call themselves, are a dying breed, and The Duke and a few of his friends are the last of their kind.

Davis masterfully creates a world of train hobos, filling the book with small details without going overboard. These details bring the reader closer to the story and can leave the reader dreaming about riding the rails. With as many twists as the railroads that crisscross the nation, The Last Professional will keep you reading page after page until the very end. I would recommend this riveting novel to anyone who enjoys a good travel and survival story, history buffs, and readers who want to be whisked away to a world frequently romanticized in American pop culture.

[Samantha Schimke · Rating 1 out of 5]

I received a free copy of this for review.
I struggled to complete this book; it’s style is uneven, swerving from limited third person to an interview question and response from one chapter to the next. Whenever I started to feel like the storytelling was flowing well it would switch the narrative to a different character.
Although, much vulnerability is shared very early about the story’s protagonist, I did not find him likable. Lynden was molested in his youth by an adult he trusted, a train riding tramp who groomed him over multiple conversations. He is sexually assaulted by his employer. This triggers him to quit his job, catch a train, and hunt down the man who kidnapped him, raped him, and abandoned him. This is all revealed remarkably soon in the tale.
He befriends an hobo who just happens to be in the first traincar on which he catches a ride. This man reveals himself as The Duke, and stands in as our guide to the dying world of hobos, tramps, trains, and their community in the early 1980s.
The Duke is running from a boogeyman-like tramp, called Short Arm and this fuels much of the story’s predictable action.
The most enjoyable moments involve the knowledge given of trains, the hobo life, and the traditions in the hobo camps (jungles). These did not occur often enough to save this book for me.

[Kim Hovanecz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Daytona Beach Shores Book Club reader Curt says:
This is an intriguing buddy story between a 26-year-old software engineer and a “professional” on the rails. As a child he was abused by a hobo. Then he quit his job because the boss grabbed his crotch in the men’s room, after offering him a promotion.

Lyden meets Duke, a “professional” hobo. Dividing the rail riders from the newcomers, pros and “Johnsons”, Duke explains the expectations including dubbing him Frisco since all hobos have monikers. Johnsons are violent criminals. Duke and Frisco have adventures, including (112) being picked up by 2 BYU coeds (ages 48 and 21) that is the turning point in the book Lynden is trying to overcome the early trauma and the repetition by his boss. Unable to respond, he runs out of the house. Gradually Frisco gains experience and the confidence to act on his own,
In the end Frisco finds himself. #BookTribBC

[Stephanie Stueckrath · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Last Professional was a book that I won for a literary review.
Story about Lynden, a computer programmer, that gave up his career after an attempted sexual assault at work. Lynden jumps a train car, riding the rails in search of The Tramp, someone Lynden meet when he was 12 while searching for his father.
Jumping a train car, he realizes that he is not alone. “The Duke” is also in a dark corner on the boxcar.
The Duke (an old timer hobo) and Lynden become friends, sharing stories and traveling the rails together.
I feel that this story line would have been better if set in a prior decade. Maybe it would have flowed better.
I can see where “The Last Professional” would be an interesting read. However, the storyline became monotonous, with the various stops along the tracks. I found that I was just reading to complete the storyline.

While this was not a story for me, others may enjoy it.

[D. L. (Dave) LaRoche · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this a surprising and sensitive look into the life of a hobo of the mid-twentieth centruy. Surprising because it was much more than hoped for, both in story and craft. Sensitive because of the humanity expressed by the narrator as he pulled back the curtain on a life we ordinary folks know little about. Ed Davis must certainly have lived that life as his familiarity and insights are so raw and revealing that only the experience itself could account.

Was there too much? Did every event, though independently interesting, often thrilling, need to be included so as to make the point, carry the story? I found, at times, repetition--particularly related to the hobo philosophy drumed into our heads--the freedom and obligation that is the wanderer's life.

Bottom line, an excellent read and unusal experience. Thank you Ed Davis and "the Duke"

[Diane Kane · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Last Professional by Ed Davis captured my imagination and my heart. Davis's easy style, with a well-balanced narrative and dialog, swept me away to another time and place. The words faded from the page before my eyes; soon, I could smell the diesel and feel the vibration of the rails. Davis pulls the curtain aside and bids you to enter the world of trains, hobos, and carnies during the 1970s when they were all fighting for survival. The characters are unforgettable, and their story twists and turns like the rails they ride. The mystery, suspense, and revelations make this book a page-turner until the very end. If you love books with fascinating history, unlikely heroes, and intriguing plots, then I highly recommend The Last Professional by Ed Davis.

[Rachelle LeBlanc · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won the The Last Professional by Ed Davis in a LibraryThing giveaway.

The story line of The Duke and Lynden “Frisco” being hobos that used trains to travel and a way of life was interesting. Learning what train hitch hiking hobo did for food and how they created a family was educational.

Short Arm, another hobo, was after the Duke and was subplot of the story. I mainly kept reading because I was curious if they ever crossed paths.

I probably won’t pick this book up again but I can see how others may love this story.

[Ayezu Tamarapreye Okoko · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to the sample on audible (Amazon).The reading in a documentary fashion by the author Ed is in itself audible and loud.A well read story on transportation in ancient America from free rail transportation and ride on horse back enjoyed by pilgrims,citizens and immigrants.It looks at Windin's life and his following of these train(pronounced t-ray-in/T-reign for perfect ray in or reign) in search of his father(pronounced farther for moving further from ones location probably into the future).I hope to read the entire book as soon as I can.

[David H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good.
A well written depiction of a unique way-of-life, made possible by the advent of steam powered locomotives, and made to decline and disappear by their demise.
Great diverse characters, each with a colorful identity and history. Each one a part of an army of mostly men, constantly on the move, back and forth across the Country, finding food in many ways and living by a common unwritten code. No one place for very long.
An easy, enjoyable read.

[Erik · Rating 2 out of 5]

I felt that Ed Davis’ The Last Professional was a tale that was written twenty years too late. It was an interesting story about hobo train travel and life. But it felt like the setting was out of place. The tale of rail riders and the sadistic cops that trailed them would have been better set in the 1950’s than the mid 1980’s. And the weird story line of basically pedophilia was honestly troubling. A talented writer but a story that left me wanting more.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

My husband and I have a love of steam trains but I couldn't get very interested in this book. A young man gets fed up with his job and runs away. He resides to ride the rails. He is looking for a person that entered his like when he was a pre teen and happens to meet an old hobo. A twisting and turning story of them riding the rails together. Not impressed with the characters even though they fit the story.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Filled with fascinating characters, a life or death chase, and a manhunt to find a vicious pedophile, all on the railroads of America. This suspenseful story will captivate the reader all the wat to its dramatic end. I could feel the swaying of the boxcars, hear the clanking of the hypnotic sounds of the train and feel the tug of wanderlust as I read the book.

[Meredith · Rating 3 out of 5]

In my opinion, the summary needs to be rewritten as it is not even close to the story. Overall the story was good, just not what I imagined after reading the summary. Some parts were really slow but the store as a whole was great.

[Kirstin · Rating 2 out of 5]

A young boy is abducted by a train hobo and sexually abused for several weeks before being released. Fast forward twenty years, and that same boy, now a successful tech entrepreneur, quits his career to ride the rails in search of his abuser. Written in a staccato cadence, I tired of the violence and simple, yet far-fetched plot.

[Linda Armstrong · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boxcars

I did not care for the story in this book. It was mostly about hobos jumping the rails and hitching a ride. How many times can you say that over and over? I thought the story was boring. This book was not for me.

[Kim Ward · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting read for the historical background information on railroad riding hobos. The main plot line and characters never really captured me sufficient for me to feel compelled to flip to the next page. The story line divergence into carnival life almost derailed me from finishing the book.

[Tiffany · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a pretty good read. It keeps your interest to see what will happen next. There are a lot of characters to keep track of but the flow of the story is good.