Thunder Road
It’s 1947 in Fort Worth, Texas, and “pissant cowboy” Jefferson Sharp, former police officer, Special Ranger, WWII combat infantry veteran and, most recently, private detective, is going through a tough time for all kinds of reasons. He’s just been divorced and fired from his latest job. By apparent chance, in a drinking establishment he runs into a wartime army buddy, Jerry Cartwright, who is the date of Jeff’s childhood friend, Veronica. The two veterans tell her how each saved the other’s life during combat. Soon however his newly re-discovered friend, now an Army Air Force Major, turns up missing. Jeff is hired to find him.
His quest takes him to the exotic venues of Roswell, New Mexico, newly established Las Vegas, Nevada, and odd points between. His traveling companion is Veronica, the childhood friend who shares a special kinship with him from their earliest days. He must deal with a somewhat tarnished Hollywood cowboy movie star, a sketchy newspaper reporter, a locally connected business manager, the Chicago mob, a newly minted and shady U.S. Intelligence agency, and his likeable landlord, an elderly woman with whom he shares boozy lunches. All of this ultimately delivers him to an even more bizarre and otherworldly culmination in his search.
This genre-defying and enormously entertaining romp is Mickey Spillane meets Whitley Strieber meets Woody Allen. I can’t remember when I’ve had so much plain old fun reading a book and just didn’t want it to end. The dialogue is classic late ‘40s, as are the nostalgic descriptions of people, places and things. Las Vegas has one traffic light, which makes it a burgeoning metropolis compared to Roswell. Sharp is constantly feeding dimes into pay phones to make calls. Air conditioning is an exotic novelty, as people relish being immersed in “refrigerated air.” My highest recommendation. Enjoy the ride!
