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Taking the Highway
When hitchhiking becomes the profession that saves the city, who will save the hitchhikers?
Detroit is thriving, once again on the move. The key to this motion may be the fourths--professional hitchhikers who round out incomplete carpools, allowing the car entrance to the superfast, computer-controlled highways.
The city needs fourths. Fourths need the work. It's an easy way to earn some extra cash.
Or to end up dead.
Someone is killing fourths and the only one who can stop the killer is jaded homicide detective Andre LaCroix, who moonlights as a fourth himself.
Taking the Highway is the newest science fiction thriller from the authors of The Caline Conspiracy and Fate's Mirror.
Detroit is thriving, once again on the move. The key to this motion may be the fourths--professional hitchhikers who round out incomplete carpools, allowing the car entrance to the superfast, computer-controlled highways.
The city needs fourths. Fourths need the work. It's an easy way to earn some extra cash.
Or to end up dead.
Someone is killing fourths and the only one who can stop the killer is jaded homicide detective Andre LaCroix, who moonlights as a fourth himself.
Taking the Highway is the newest science fiction thriller from the authors of The Caline Conspiracy and Fate's Mirror.
384 pages, Paperback
First published November 17, 2012
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234 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
February 1, 2015
Cross-posted from Papyrus Independent Author Reviews (http://papyrus.calebblake.net/2013/02/10/taking-the-highway-by-m-h-mead/)
Andre LaCroix moonlights as a fourth. All other times, he’s a Detroit cop. When someone starts to kill fourths, Andre pushes to be involved – and what follows is a race to find those responsible before Detroit is brought to its knees.
This is actually the third book I’ve read and reviewed for these authors, M. H. Mead being a nom de plume for a writing duo: Fate’s Mirror and The Caline Conspiracy. Obviously, something appeals in the writing because here I go again. I really liked Taking the Highway. A small sidebar in Fate’s Mirror has been fleshed out into a fascinating and exciting story.
In a world where car pooling is a necessity, one can earn a secondary income being a fourth – the extra passenger required to meet the strict car pooling laws for highway travel. It’s a competitive market and fourths are well dressed and well adjusted, a pleasure to have in your car. Thus fourths have a favourable impact on the city itself. So who would want to start killing them? I was drawn into this story very quickly, not just because the idea itself is innovative, but because, as usual, the authors write smoothly with likeable characters, witty dialogue that doesn’t become overbearing and a mystery that unravels at a pleasing pace. Additionally, the novel consists of sub-plots in the personal lives of the main characters which add interest without becoming distracting side quests.
I loved the Andre LaCroix character. He was a cool customer on the outside, but had enough personal issues churning around on the inside to keep him interesting throughout the story. He also forms the centre of the plot with everything branching out from him: his relationship with his brother and his nephew, his rivalry and dark past with a key member of his task force, his professional relationship with a suburban cop, even his moonlighting job as a fourth. Secrets are revealed, different parts of his life collide and he is dragged into the wreckage and hopefully back out again.
The story doesn’t always hang together perfectly. As the action heats up, I felt some of the logic slip just a little. Not all motivations were entirely clear to me even after the scheduled revelation. But it was hard to even notice while experiencing the adrenalin-fuelled finale. The last part of this book was like a blockbuster and I’m surprised my face wasn’t blue by the end from holding my breath.
Although this novel occurs in the same near-future as Fate’s Mirror and The Caline Conspiracy, each book quite happily exists as a standalone story and no particular reading order is required. After reading one, however, I believe it will be difficult to resist the others.
This dynamic writing duo always seems to come up with the goods and Taking the Highway is no exception. Good ideas, mystery, human interest, a romance that didn’t make me nauseous and action, action, action! They have me revving my engine for their next novel.
Andre LaCroix moonlights as a fourth. All other times, he’s a Detroit cop. When someone starts to kill fourths, Andre pushes to be involved – and what follows is a race to find those responsible before Detroit is brought to its knees.
This is actually the third book I’ve read and reviewed for these authors, M. H. Mead being a nom de plume for a writing duo: Fate’s Mirror and The Caline Conspiracy. Obviously, something appeals in the writing because here I go again. I really liked Taking the Highway. A small sidebar in Fate’s Mirror has been fleshed out into a fascinating and exciting story.
In a world where car pooling is a necessity, one can earn a secondary income being a fourth – the extra passenger required to meet the strict car pooling laws for highway travel. It’s a competitive market and fourths are well dressed and well adjusted, a pleasure to have in your car. Thus fourths have a favourable impact on the city itself. So who would want to start killing them? I was drawn into this story very quickly, not just because the idea itself is innovative, but because, as usual, the authors write smoothly with likeable characters, witty dialogue that doesn’t become overbearing and a mystery that unravels at a pleasing pace. Additionally, the novel consists of sub-plots in the personal lives of the main characters which add interest without becoming distracting side quests.
I loved the Andre LaCroix character. He was a cool customer on the outside, but had enough personal issues churning around on the inside to keep him interesting throughout the story. He also forms the centre of the plot with everything branching out from him: his relationship with his brother and his nephew, his rivalry and dark past with a key member of his task force, his professional relationship with a suburban cop, even his moonlighting job as a fourth. Secrets are revealed, different parts of his life collide and he is dragged into the wreckage and hopefully back out again.
The story doesn’t always hang together perfectly. As the action heats up, I felt some of the logic slip just a little. Not all motivations were entirely clear to me even after the scheduled revelation. But it was hard to even notice while experiencing the adrenalin-fuelled finale. The last part of this book was like a blockbuster and I’m surprised my face wasn’t blue by the end from holding my breath.
Although this novel occurs in the same near-future as Fate’s Mirror and The Caline Conspiracy, each book quite happily exists as a standalone story and no particular reading order is required. After reading one, however, I believe it will be difficult to resist the others.
This dynamic writing duo always seems to come up with the goods and Taking the Highway is no exception. Good ideas, mystery, human interest, a romance that didn’t make me nauseous and action, action, action! They have me revving my engine for their next novel.
December 24, 2012
Original post here: http://offbeatvagabond.blogspot.com/2012/12/indie-book-review-taking-highway-by-m-h.html
Taking the Highway is an interesting look into future Detroit. In order to ride the high-tech, superfast highways of Detroit, they need Fourths for carpooling. Fourths are hired hitchhikers. They are charming, entertaining and easy to get along with as their job requires. But when Fourth and detective Andre LaCroix is called in one night to look at a dead body dumped in the Oh-Zone, he quickly realizes a pattern; someone is killing Fourths. His peers believe he is reaching and is making things personal, but Andre knows something is up and will fight to show
I really enjoyed this story. Definitely an interesting science fiction read. I love the idea of this futuristic Detroit. Mead did a great job with giving us this mystery of the dead Fourths and terrorists attacks. For a science fiction read, it felt very real. It wasn't that hard to imagine a world like this because there are some aspects of it I can see taking place. Hell, we are almost there when you think about it. We also get a fair amount of action in this book which added more excitement.
Our protagonist Andre was a lot of fun. You are never sure what he may say or do next. I especially enjoyed the banter between him and Sofia. She was a no nonsense kind of woman that gave Andre a run for his money. I also liked Andre and his brother Oliver. Oliver was a bit self-absorbed and was very much Mr. Hotshot. But he is likeable I must say. They were total opposites, but that just made it all the more entertaining when they were together. There were a lot of great pairs in this book. The chemistry is where this book shines for me. I love the interactions between these characters because the dialogue is great. It just leaps off the page and makes the book feel more real even though it is sci-fi.
As much as I enjoyed this read, I had some issues for sure. My main issue right off the back was actually how far along in the future are we exactly. I know this is future Detroit, but I have no idea if this is 10 years from now, 20, 30, the book doesn't specify. Also this book gives us a lot of tech jargon out of the gate and it takes a few chapters before you grasp what they are talking about. This could make certain scenes a bit hard to understand. Also I would have liked more on the characters. I would love some back stories, but I can overlook that since I still ended up loving them anyway. I got a feel for them.
This is a mystery, so I am trying very hard not to give anything away. But trust me, it is worth reading about. Plenty of twists and turns. It will keep you guessing for a while and I like that a lot. Besides some of the confusion I had in the book with just the general feel of Detroit and the world in general, this was a pretty good read. There wasn't a dull moment that is for sure. The characters were lively and had a lot of personality and chemistry. This was a bit more mystery than sci-fi, but it is still a great read for fans of either genre. Definitely check this one out.
Taking the Highway is an interesting look into future Detroit. In order to ride the high-tech, superfast highways of Detroit, they need Fourths for carpooling. Fourths are hired hitchhikers. They are charming, entertaining and easy to get along with as their job requires. But when Fourth and detective Andre LaCroix is called in one night to look at a dead body dumped in the Oh-Zone, he quickly realizes a pattern; someone is killing Fourths. His peers believe he is reaching and is making things personal, but Andre knows something is up and will fight to show
I really enjoyed this story. Definitely an interesting science fiction read. I love the idea of this futuristic Detroit. Mead did a great job with giving us this mystery of the dead Fourths and terrorists attacks. For a science fiction read, it felt very real. It wasn't that hard to imagine a world like this because there are some aspects of it I can see taking place. Hell, we are almost there when you think about it. We also get a fair amount of action in this book which added more excitement.
Our protagonist Andre was a lot of fun. You are never sure what he may say or do next. I especially enjoyed the banter between him and Sofia. She was a no nonsense kind of woman that gave Andre a run for his money. I also liked Andre and his brother Oliver. Oliver was a bit self-absorbed and was very much Mr. Hotshot. But he is likeable I must say. They were total opposites, but that just made it all the more entertaining when they were together. There were a lot of great pairs in this book. The chemistry is where this book shines for me. I love the interactions between these characters because the dialogue is great. It just leaps off the page and makes the book feel more real even though it is sci-fi.
As much as I enjoyed this read, I had some issues for sure. My main issue right off the back was actually how far along in the future are we exactly. I know this is future Detroit, but I have no idea if this is 10 years from now, 20, 30, the book doesn't specify. Also this book gives us a lot of tech jargon out of the gate and it takes a few chapters before you grasp what they are talking about. This could make certain scenes a bit hard to understand. Also I would have liked more on the characters. I would love some back stories, but I can overlook that since I still ended up loving them anyway. I got a feel for them.
This is a mystery, so I am trying very hard not to give anything away. But trust me, it is worth reading about. Plenty of twists and turns. It will keep you guessing for a while and I like that a lot. Besides some of the confusion I had in the book with just the general feel of Detroit and the world in general, this was a pretty good read. There wasn't a dull moment that is for sure. The characters were lively and had a lot of personality and chemistry. This was a bit more mystery than sci-fi, but it is still a great read for fans of either genre. Definitely check this one out.
December 13, 2012
Normally I'm all for conciseness, but this is one of those rare cases where I feel like a good novel is missing out on the depth of detail that could have made it a great book.
The concept is intriguing, the characters are solid, the mystery and the action move well. The plot and pacing held my attention; I didn't see it coming until it happened, but the "loaded gun on the mantelpiece" comes into play at the end and the climactic scenes deliver.
Car chases! Political terrorists! Dirty cops! All of this in a really neat, future Detroit where highway laws require four passengers and paid hitchhikers or "fourths" are a fixture of the cityscape.
I'm waffling over giving this three stars or four, but ultimately, I really wanted more. There were half a dozen moments where the scarcity of detail pulled me out of the book and left me confused--not only because I had trouble picturing the scene, but also because moments in conversations didn't make sense to me without some context or explanation. I wanted more detail about the technology and the time period in the first few chapters, but instead we're swept immediately into the story in a way that left me feeling like some of the tech was added as scenery and not fully fleshed out. For a book that, ultimately, is about the main character's love of his city, I feel like I didn't really get to know Detroit at all.
A quick, light, engaging read that will probably appeal more to mystery/thriller lovers than to fans of SFF.
**Full disclosure: I received a free ebook copy from the author. I'm also a SFF reader and perhaps not the target audience for this book.**
The concept is intriguing, the characters are solid, the mystery and the action move well. The plot and pacing held my attention; I didn't see it coming until it happened, but the "loaded gun on the mantelpiece" comes into play at the end and the climactic scenes deliver.
Car chases! Political terrorists! Dirty cops! All of this in a really neat, future Detroit where highway laws require four passengers and paid hitchhikers or "fourths" are a fixture of the cityscape.
I'm waffling over giving this three stars or four, but ultimately, I really wanted more. There were half a dozen moments where the scarcity of detail pulled me out of the book and left me confused--not only because I had trouble picturing the scene, but also because moments in conversations didn't make sense to me without some context or explanation. I wanted more detail about the technology and the time period in the first few chapters, but instead we're swept immediately into the story in a way that left me feeling like some of the tech was added as scenery and not fully fleshed out. For a book that, ultimately, is about the main character's love of his city, I feel like I didn't really get to know Detroit at all.
A quick, light, engaging read that will probably appeal more to mystery/thriller lovers than to fans of SFF.
**Full disclosure: I received a free ebook copy from the author. I'm also a SFF reader and perhaps not the target audience for this book.**
May 20, 2013
First, I'll say that I would class this as SF lite. While set in the future, the only SF element is the Overdrive, an automatic driving system for the interstate highways. This is not a new concept, and is perhaps not as far-fetched as it was a couple of decades ago. This is technology that is still out of reach, but not by much. In this book, the technology itself is not the focus, but is a key element in social changes in the city. The Overdrive plus energy conservation laws create a whole new workforce in the Fourths - passengers for hire to fill the carpool requirements for highway traveling.
While the book is primarily a crime and mystery story, those social changes were really interesting, but lacking some detail. I did not much care for the main character at first, but he grew on me as the story progressed. His issues with his family, conflicts between his two jobs, and concerns for his city's welfare did make him an entirely realistic character. He certainly had his work cut out for him, and found more bad guys than he expected. I thought the ending was well done.
Overall, this was very good reading. I'll be interested to see if this Detroit of the future will be featured in more of the authors' work.
While the book is primarily a crime and mystery story, those social changes were really interesting, but lacking some detail. I did not much care for the main character at first, but he grew on me as the story progressed. His issues with his family, conflicts between his two jobs, and concerns for his city's welfare did make him an entirely realistic character. He certainly had his work cut out for him, and found more bad guys than he expected. I thought the ending was well done.
Overall, this was very good reading. I'll be interested to see if this Detroit of the future will be featured in more of the authors' work.
May 8, 2016
Police and crime stories aren't normally my thing, but I was drawn by the futuristic elements of this one. The first thing I noticed was how Detroit instantly becomes a character in the story. The city lives and breathes, its needs and desires always a factor in how the story unfolds. Even more interesting is how each character's interpretation of or relationship with the city informs their decisions and attitude throughout. All the characters are well fleshed-out, with the sole exception of Price-Powell who rang a tad hollow to me.
I enjoyed this story. It's fast paced, has plenty of interesting twists and some really great surprise reveals. Even the last few chapters had surprises. There were a couple loose ends I would have liked to see resolved, or at least had a few more hints about. There were a few times I did wish the characters had communicated a little more (I wasn't sure why they didn't), but it didn't interfere with my enjoyment of the story. Well worth the read.
I enjoyed this story. It's fast paced, has plenty of interesting twists and some really great surprise reveals. Even the last few chapters had surprises. There were a couple loose ends I would have liked to see resolved, or at least had a few more hints about. There were a few times I did wish the characters had communicated a little more (I wasn't sure why they didn't), but it didn't interfere with my enjoyment of the story. Well worth the read.
November 10, 2013
I will say to start with that this is not the type of book that normally appeals to me I've given my old kindle to my dad so I'm looking around for free books for him. Thought the whole concept of this sounded original and intriguing and I really wanted to like it more, unfortunately I found it was very slow moving, on several occasions I found myself flicking through my amazon library to find something else to read. I did stick with it however since I wanted to know what happened in the end, which is always the case isn't it although I think part of the problem for me was I didn't particulary like any of the characters, I think a bit of humour particulary between Andre and Danny would have made their relationship better. It was a great idea even if a little predictable in the end but after finishing the book I wished it had been shorter.
February 21, 2013
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The story moves along quickly at a good pace and is populated with realistic and credible characters that the reader can readily associate with. It is a bit of an easy read but if you are looking for something light that is also lots of fun, you could certainly do a lot worse! As much a clever Crime thriller as it is Sci-fi, this novel highly impressed me and left me keen to read more by the same author. Taking The Highway comes highly recommended from me and M.H. Mead certainly looks like an author to watch out for in the future for enjoyable, uncomplicated, good quality Sci-fi!
The story moves along quickly at a good pace and is populated with realistic and credible characters that the reader can readily associate with. It is a bit of an easy read but if you are looking for something light that is also lots of fun, you could certainly do a lot worse! As much a clever Crime thriller as it is Sci-fi, this novel highly impressed me and left me keen to read more by the same author. Taking The Highway comes highly recommended from me and M.H. Mead certainly looks like an author to watch out for in the future for enjoyable, uncomplicated, good quality Sci-fi!
May 29, 2016
I got this book as a free Kindle download and actually rather enjoyed it. The plot and characters were good and all of that. But what I found the most interesting what the type of future the book spun. It was an intriguing mix of dependence on technology, like we are no, and a shun of technology. I thought that was the most interesting.
April 20, 2013
Concept of story very intriguing. I enjoyed it. There are 2 very graphic love scenes that add nothing to the story. I skimmed through them.I would have given this book 5 stars but I do not like to read stories with graphic sex and profanity (very little).
November 1, 2015
Future Detroit
In a near future Detroit car pooling is a way of life. In order to have a full car there are people who act as professional hitchhikers so that each car has four passengers. Someone is killing such people and the central character must find this killer.
In a near future Detroit car pooling is a way of life. In order to have a full car there are people who act as professional hitchhikers so that each car has four passengers. Someone is killing such people and the central character must find this killer.
May 7, 2013
Very good.
August 24, 2013
Good plot and decent execution, but the main character often misses the "rogue-ishly charming" mark and lands on "douchily annoying."
September 2, 2015
This was in interesting look into the future.
June 30, 2016
Great near-future universe! Couldn't get over the main character being a bit of a jerk.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews