Threading the Needle

by Clay Reynolds

Overview

In a chilling mixture of the nostalgic and the supernatural, Clay Reynolds adds to his Sandhill Chronicles this story of Faustian bargains, drag racing, old-time rock and roll, and a sister's love for a brother who dies tragically young. Sherry Littlefield, heroine of this tale of high speed and certain death, finds out a horrible truth about the senseless accident that took the life of her older brother, Keith. By piecing together clues, she learns that her brother discovered a ghostly drag race that takes place every spring on the Old Loop, an antique stretch of highway that leads to an impassable tunnel called the Needle.Long before Sherry and Keith were born, a local tough and street hood, Bobby Dean, made himself legendary for his prowess behind the wheel of Black Sabbath, his powerful and souped-up '57 Chevy. Taking on and defeating all comers, he evolved a deadly race that terminated at the Needle, a contest wherein only the winner was left alive. Eventually, Bobby Dean's evil caught up with him. His and Black Sabbath's fatal crash ended an era. Or so everyone thought.Now returned as a spirit, Bobby Dean emerges on warm spring nights to take on new challengers. On the line are the souls of the living and the dead—the stakes of beating a demon at his own game. Keith's soul has joined the defeated, but Sherry, finding and rebuilding her brother's demolished '66 Mustang, determines to finish what he started. Hell-bent to meet the demonic Bobby Dean in one last challenge, Sherry vows to thread the Needle and free Keith's soul.A steadily building suspense follows Sherry's systematic search for weakness in her ghostly adversary and her obsessive honing of her skills under the hood and behind the wheel. Despite her obsession, when the showdown is imminent, only a wellspring of faith can enable Sherry to pit herself against the dark legacy that haunts her small town.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780896724983
Publisher:	Texas Tech University Press
Publication date:	05/28/2003
Series:	Sandhill Chronicle Series
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	9.20(w) x 6.30(h) x 1.20(d)

Editorial Reviews

Reynolds's latest addition to his Sandhill Chronicles pays tribute to the legacy of James Dean and the glory days of drag racing, telling the heartfelt story of a North Texas racer whose legend dominates a small town in the post-WWII era. Bobby Dean is the bad boy with a fast car who makes his reputation by winning races out on "the Loop," a drag strip the local teenagers carve out on the edge of town. Dean's most famous trick is called "threading the needle," a modified version of chicken involving a narrow, tunnel-like stretch of highway. Dean bullies his challengers with this maneuver until football player Tommy Golden comes back from the war to take on Dean in a race that kills both young men. But several residents continue to sense Dean's presence on the Loop in a series of lurid scenes that also feature ghostly drag racers recreating their finest battles. Inspired by these visions, young Keith Littlefield challenges Dean's ghost to a duel and loses his life battling Dean's imaginary car. Littlefield's sister, Sherry, then assumes his mantle, restoring her brother's wrecked Mustang and going after Dean in a final race to put the deadly ghost to rest. Reynolds's storytelling shines, especially in the novel's first half, where he makes plain his love of dragsters, rock music and '50s youth culture. But the ghost subplot reads like something from a bad horror movie, and the drag-racing scenes eventually lose their thrill. Reynolds's setup is solid, but his tale flags down the stretch. (June) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly