Road Like a River

Graeme
Smith
ISBN Number: 
978-1771272476
Genre: 
Paranormal

Not everything is as it seems when one dies. Kharon Kharapas, otherwise known as Charlie, is a man who is not a man. This is not a time to be thinking of angels. He is dead though not dead. Charlie drives a black eighteen-wheeler picking up deliveries to deliver to a roadhouse that isn't a roadhouse. Think of an afterlife weigh station. Charlie's deliveries are the souls of the dead given a ride for the price of a penny. These souls are also dead but not really dead.  Rosie is the one delivery that brings the story a semblance of purpose. 

Smith's story is a constant verbiage of opposites. The scenes consist of one dark setting after another.  The characters speak in a trucker/ redneck language that some might find grating.  With the  most memorable of all being the three-headed dog. The plot is convoluted and very confusing  with only an brief moments of a coherent tale. The language is raw, the twists and turns jarring as they run around in circles while folding into one another.  Reader caution is a must for language and subject content.  The author obviously has great talent and a wild imagination for the weird but his vision just didn't come through for the average reader in this story. Maybe those who love dark fantasy, ancient mythology, with a redneck lifestyle will better understand it.

 

Erin Murdock