Dead Man’s Road by Randy Denmon
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Author, Denmon obviously has a great handle on the mechanization of the railroad business and well presents it here. He even crafts a decent story around it. It’s the rest that stinks.

Let me begin with the very good part: Denmon does an exemplary job of writing the construction of the rails and the physical, mechanical and governmental needs. The engineering part of it all from the plans to the trusses needed for a bridge are very accurately written into the story.

I find almost all types of music,TV, movies, books, etc. created in the past 20 years has elements of the Valley Girl in it. I was surprised to find elements of the Valley Girl in a western novel by a man. but it’s very much there. The use of superlatives is ridiculous. Just the last two pages include: amazing, magnificence and totally.

The dialogue is presented as if all have had some fine education. Even those described as being illiterate. The indians sound as if they attended primary school in New York. This is the worse element of the book. It’s one of the good guys that curses more than any other character. The bad guys are written with rather gentle dialogue and then written with very rough action. Most of the characters are written in narrative and dialogue very similarly.

Denmon also approaches the opening of chapters the same way. Seemed to me each opening had some color involved to describe the setting. Denmon did his best to include a solid setting, but it read as very mechanical.

The good guy was very frustrating and I had trouble liking the character. As much as he was written like the others in dialogue, Denmon included a lot of inner thought that didn’t match with the dialogue.

I could go on. I believe this book is just another example of a contemporary book missing a good editor who would’ve pegged so many obvious troubles and could be straighten out.

The overall book is fine, though pretty predicable.

Bottom line: I don’t recommend this book. 5 out of 5 points.

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