Invercargill City Libraries

Dead Run

Posted by Donald on 22 January 2012 | 0 Comments

Tags: pursue 100, your reviews, suspense

P J Tracy

The three woman, Grace Macbride, Annie Belinsky and Sharon Mueller all set off for Green Bay from Minneapolis. After a couple of unexpected detours the car breaks down and they are miles away from any civilization. As they trudge along the road in the sweltering heat they come across a small town called Four Corners. A very small town in the middle of nowhere.... but where are all the people and why are all the phone lines cut???

Little did they know that the town was accidentally gassed by a terrorist group that had accidentally crashed there moments before they arrived.  As they lay low somewhere they find evidence that they are not alone. As they get to grip of their surroundings they witness terrible acts of murder as some of the townspeople arrive home to find the town deserted and their vehicles bombarded with heavy assault rifle fire.
Disturbed about the lateness of the girls’ arrival in Green Bay, or lack of, the work mates of theirs Harley, Roadrunner and other characters try to find out what is happening to the girls and are sick with worry about why they haven’t called yet.
While Grace, Annie and Sharon have a run in with the terrorists they end up in the spot were the terrorists have been dumping the gassed bodies disgusted at what they have witnessed they decide to give in to their instincts. Particularly one main instinct... Survival.

As the net closes in on the three women they decide to torch the town to get the terrorists away from the perimeter so they can slip through the net and off to safety. As they escape they find a cop and his car. They hop in the car with him and he drives up to a plot of land for farming.  As they are in the car and they stop Sharon pulls out her gun and shoots him. After the hysteria dies down she explains why she killed him and that was because he was actually a terrorist in disguise and that the car and uniform was borrowed from a person they had meet earlier called Deputy Lee.  They then find out about the terrorist plot and they find their work mates who managed to track them down and travel to where they are. They also find out that there are two more Trucks loaded with the gas in other heavily populated areas that are primed and ready to get detonated. Due to the technical genius of Roadrunner they manage to shut off the detonators just in the nick of time and save the day.

I have to say this was a fairly complicated read as it kept introducing new characters and I haven’t even included half of the characters as it would take ages to introduce everybody and you really don’t need all the characters that are mentioned into this story. It was quite a hard plot to follow if it wasn’t boiled down like it is here because of all the characters and all of their experiences during the story. But I must the second time reading through this novel made everything a lot more enlightening. It is easier to understand this novel the second time through as you get to pick out the more important characters and how important they are to the plot of this story. Oh one thing I forgot to mention the gas was being supplied in Milk Trucks?!?  It is kind of weird how terrorists would get milk trucks and fill them with gas. It kinda makes you think just what sort of person would turn something as innocent as a milk truck and fill it with something as evil as nerve gas?
Any way a very interesting read once you get past the complicated plot and the number of characters. Though I think this book is in a series as it often mentions events prior to the book and they are mentioned throughout the novel and the author does have other books that sound like they might be in the series prior to Dead Run.

I must say I enjoy the slogan underneath the title: “If you go down to the woods today....”
I like it because it puts a sinister and scary twist to the words of The Teddy Bears Picnic song which was one of my favourite songs growing up.

(reviewed by Timothy)