West on 66 [Hardcover]

James H. Cobb (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 13, 1999

"You have a car, a gun and some nerve," she said. "Right now I need all three."

September, 1958. On vacation, LA County Deputy Sheriff Kevin Pulaski wasn't looking for anything more than a cup of coffee and a hot meal when he pulled into the lonely truck stop. But what he found was a beautiful and enigmatic young woman, a link to a decade-old multiple murder and a blood and fire-scarred road leading to a lost fortune in gangland money.

Lisette Kingman, daughter of the late Chicago gunman, "Johnny 32" Kingman holds in her possession a cryptically marked guidebook to US Highway 66, possibly holding the secret to the location of the $250,000 war chest stolen by her father from his partners. Pursuing her is Mace Spanno, the last survivor of her father's gang, intent on reclaiming both the money and Lisette.

In his undercover persona of an easy-going California hot rodder, Kevin Pulaski find himself swept up in a two thousand mile chase down the length of America's legendary Route 66. From the concrete canyons of the Chicago Loop to the desert wastes of the Mojave, Kevin's only allies are a hot '57 Chevy and a hotter Colt .45.

In West on 66, author James Cobb has written a classic noir mystery in the tradition of Elmore Leonard, Raymond Chandler and Mickey Spillane. Climb onboard for an unforgettable ride on the Mother Road.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Switching from futuristic techno-thrillers (Choosers of the Slain; Sea Strike) to a mystery set in the past, Cobb gives readers a shameless ode to the joys of the 1950s muscle carAand barely enough plot to fill the back of a postage stamp. Vacationing cop Kevin Pulaski guns his '57 Chevy across country, following the fabled Route 66 from Chicago to California, in the tail end of a hot summer in 1958. Occupying the passenger seat is the sultry Lisette Kingman, daughter of Johnny 32, a murdered mobster who stole and ran from his partners. Now Lisette is on the trail of the missing money, some 200 large. She's being helped by Pulaski and tailed by Mace Spano, one of her father's partners. More a period-piece travelogue than a mystery, this extended car chase doesn't offer enough surprises. The tale is as linear and as lonely as a stretch of rural interstate. Mace and his henchmen, plus two members of the Cluster clan, Ira and Jubal, do provide some psychotic color, showing up threateningly along the way. But it's hard to see how this novel will hold the attention of anyone but vintage car buffs and open road enthusiasts hankering for the wide empty spaces of yesteryear. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

And now, for something a little different, Cobb time-travels back from the 21st century and the world of technothrillers (Sea Strike, 1998, etc.) to 1957 and the world of, well, Jack Kerouac. Meet vacationing Los Angeles County Deputy Sheriff Kevin Pulaski, who loves his hot, custom-built57 Chevy and every bend in the fabled Route 66. At a truck stop on his way home from a family visit in Chicago, Kevin encounters that staple of mystery fiction, a beautiful if dangerous damsel in distress. On the spot, she transforms him into a combination road warrior and knight-errant. Lysette Kingman is the daughter of notorious but now dead mobster Johnny 32. More importantly, she's the stepdaughter of the ruthless, alive, and repellent Mace Spanno, once her dad's comrade in thuggery. Some years ago, Johnny double-crossed his low-life partner and stole a quarter of a million from him. Though Spanno caught and killed Johnny, the money was never found. Now, Spanno's convinced Lysette knows where it is, which is why he's been tracking her so assiduouslyand why she so desperately needs the protection of a brave and resourceful hard-driver like Kevin. (She also thinks he's cute.) From Chicago to the Mojave Desert, Lysette and Kevin follow the ``Mother Road'' while Spanno and his evil henchmen follow them in turnmuch too closely. Fistfights and firefights ensue, interspersed with a couple of above-average love scenes. Inevitably, Spanno and Kevin connect, go one-on-one with guns blazing, after which both collect their just (and contrasting) rewards. Cobb's prose is sometimes as souped-up as Kevin's beloved Chevy, but by the finish you've had a pretty entertaining ride. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Minotaur Books; 1st edition (October 13, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312206216
• ISBN-13: 978-0312206215
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,197,274 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Take an enjoyable detour through the past., October 13, 2000

By 

TundraVision (o/~ from the Land of Sky Blue Waters o/~) - See all my reviews

This review is from: West on 66 (Hardcover)

OK, this book is not Steinbeck and the Joads, but it's a "kick." It's September, 1957 and, with the assistance of *A Guide Book to Highway 66,* our hero and his "damsel in distress" are out to foil the bad guys and find hidden treasure. We follow Route 66 from Chicago's Lake Michigan over 2,000 miles to (Pacific) Ocean Avenue in Los Angeles. It was a fun and memory-laden trip for me.

Maybe the book will whet your appetite for touring on "Old" or "Historic" 66 instead of Interstate 55 or 40. A lot of the old "Mother Road" is still there. So is Dixie Trucker's Home and other "attractions." Modern society has a "need for speed," but sometimes it's nice to slow down and look around.

Along the way, the author makes poignant sociological and economic points: "... the aging two-lane bridge over the wash west of Peerless (which the author notes is `the only truly `made up' locale in West on 66 ... and even it is a composite of the numerous bypassed and abandoned road communities that can be found along the western interstates.') was taken out by a flash flood. This was bad enough, but then some bright young engineer in the State Highway Department noticed that if a replacement span and a bypass were built just a few miles downstream, a meandering northern loop could be cut out of Route 66. The driving time from Winslow to Flagstaff could be reduced by a good fifteen minutes. No doubt feeling proud of himself, he reached down and drew a little line on the map. He couldn't have destroyed Peerless any more thoroughly if he'd called a bombing mission. The traffic on the highway had become the lifeblood of the town. Deprived of that bloodflow, gangrene set in rapidly. No one came to eat Mary's hot beef sandwiches. No one pawed through the beads and trinkets in the Tom Tom Trading Post. No one stayed at the Grand Canyon Auto Court even after they put in real air conditioning."

And later on, towards the conclusion of this 1957 journey:

"From Pasedena we took the Arroyo Seco Parkway downtown. Lately, Ike's had a real bug in his ear about building a whole lot more of these freeways, as they're calling them. They're planning on running them all over the country, and it's supposed to be quite a deal. I wonder. I can't help thinking about Peerless and about all the other little towns strung out along old 66 and the other two-lanes. What happens to them when the superslabs cut them off and their mother roads die? If the Russians were to destroy a couple of hundred American communities, we'd call it an act of war. If we do it to ourselves, we call it progress."

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The perfect Boomer Book!, November 25, 1999

By 

Paula Aulton - See all my reviews

This review is from: West on 66 (Hardcover)

This is the perfect book for every boomer whose heart has warmed to the throb of a V8 engine, speeded up at the sound of a pair of glasspacks, or lusted after a 57 Chevy. The car information is legit, the chase scenes believable, the dialog terrific and the descriptive phrasing is right on the mark. I actually felt like I was travelling along the mother road with Kev and Lissette. The plotting was good, moved along rapidly and I found it plausible for the time. Too bad so many people picked this up expecting a techo thriller and were disappointed. It was great to step back to a simpler time if only for a few hours. What a great read! I'd like to see this one made into a movie!

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Everything I Love About Traveling, August 24, 2000

By 

"drgroovy" (Aurora) - See all my reviews

This review is from: West on 66 (Hardcover)

I can only wish that my summer road expolits were as exciting as the ones that this cop takes! There's nothing in this world more powerful and scintillating than the human imagination. And this book right here gives your imagination everything that it could ask for and a whole lot more. There's Mafioso types, blood, guns, beautiful places to be buried in, an anti-hero, a total hottie, love scenes... Christ, is there anything else that you really need. Congrats and thanks to James Cobb for a totally cool book and I encourage all of you to get your kicks on Route 66.