Never pick up hitchhikers. Loretta Brennan broke her own rule when she picked up hitcher Sam Emerson but the man had helped her out of a tight spot during a confrontation with a drunken and amorous fellow driver and she felt she owed him. Loretta’s been driving her rig Baby Blue by herself since husband Jed was killed in an unsolved hit-and-run two years before. Now, she has a chance to be hired by a national freight company and make the last payment on her truck and some other debts. When a blizzard blows in and she’s a deadline to make, Sam seems like a gift from heaven…he’s got a commercial license, he’s a good driver, and he knows the route. Besides, he’s good-looking and handy to have around when other truckers get the wrong ideas about a female trucker.
So Sam and Loretta start out, but things soon go wrong. The driver who accosted her turns up dead, his throat cut, and two others in another truck stop where they take a break are also killed the same way. Then Sam gets into a knife fight, and Loretta thinks she knows the truth…Sam’s the killer and if she sticks with him, she may be next. It doesn’t matter that she feels a strong attraction to the man...she has a daughter to think of, and that bonus if the freight arrives on time. Ditching Sam at the next truck stop, she gets in her rig and heads for Cheyenne, while police take Sam into custody. Loretta’s may have traded one danger for another, for she’s driving into a blizzard with an unmarked white eighteen-wheeler tailing her, and she’s leaving behind the only man who can protect her…
MY OPINION: A tense, thrilling story, and one that will keep you guessing. Having recently driven the route taken by Loretta—also in winter and also by myself—I was particularly empathetic to her fears and concerns of driving a rig through that stretch of highway during a snowstorm. I also saw several eighteen-wheelers off the road during my trip, which included a blizzard, though nothing like the one Loretta and Sam face, but scary enough for a lone woman in a car.
This story is reminiscent of the old made-for-TV movie Duel, starring Dennis Weaver, and I kept thinking what a taut thriller for the big screen it would make. Reading it in the wintertime with snow on the ground won’t hurt a bit.
Winter’s Journey is available from Eternal Press, www.eternalpress.biz
This novel was supplied by the author and no remuneration was involved in the writing of this review.
