The Biker

Nightmare Hall #24

by Diane Hoh

A joyride turns deadly in this tale of murder and retribution The motorcycle appears out of nowhere, thundering down the quiet residential street. By the time it roars back up the block and disappears from view, a little boy is injured and an elderly woman is dead.Salem University outsider Echo Glenn is paying her own way through college by working part time at the school infirmary. She thinks she knows the identity of the Mad Biker in black leather who’s been terrorizing the town—she just needs confirmation. And while she’s at it, maybe she’ll sneak a ride on his Harley. But the joyride turns into a journey of terror when the bike plows into a group of students outside a college hangout.Now Echo is an accomplice to murder—and the target of an avenging killer who’s going to make sure she doesn’t live to tell the tale.This ebook features an illustrated biography of Diane Hoh including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection.

Genres: Young Adult, Horror, Teen

202 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 1995

About the author

Diane Hoh is the author of fifty-seven novels for young adults. She grew up in Warren, Pennsylvania but currently resides in Austin, Texas. Reading and writing are her favorite things, alongside gardening and grandchildren.

Reviews

[Carmen Tudor · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were elements I liked about this novel, such as the pace of the action and the different character type in our protagonist, Echo, but other things really got in the way for me. Echo's insistence early on that she's a loner doesn't gel with her strange and prolonged association with the antagonist. Secondly, every interaction she had with the motorcycle (and there were quite a few) was portrayed as though she was handling a lightweight bicycle. I couldn't believe what I was reading during these passages. For example, a rider grabbing Echo, throwing her on the moving machine and holding onto her around her waist with one hand while continuing to ride didn't ring true for a moment. Neither did the scene in which the bike (Harley?) fell on Echo's leg and she didn't sustain a serious injury and was able to lift the bike up without much effort -- while on unstable terrain. At night. And being pursued by the antagonist. I love Diane Hoh, and the series as a whole, but this one had a few too many credibility issues.

[Erica Leigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

- Very murdery (actual body count: I lost track 😆)
- lots of weird names (this is towards the end of the series so maybe they ran out)
- an idiot red herring who incriminates themself

One of the more memorable (and enjoyable!) Nightmare Halls so far!

[Courtney Gruenholz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kindle edition.

Written by Diane Hoh according to the copyright at the end of the eBook.

Some of the titles for these Nightmare Hall books sort of throw me off wanting to read them or even the original cover art just seems to lack punch. Since I don't find too many of these books with their neon Day-Glo spines out in the wild very often, I'll pay a small amount of money to have it on my Kindle.

Just like taking a book to HPB if you find you don't like it, you can just delete it from your library.

I wouldn't say that The Biker is a bad entry in the Nightmare Hall series but most of it is very predictable after reading so many similar YA thrillers. It wasn't until the end toward the climax when there was a reveal/twist that was actually unexpected, so I'll give it credit there.

A "mad biker" is going around the town of Twin Falls and the campus of Salem U causing a lot of trouble. A few people have missed being hit by the Harley while some people have had the misfortune of actually getting hurt and a few have even died. They range from teenagers, college students, an elderly woman and even a child!

Our main character, Echo Glenn, is a mostly anti-social campus activist who had had to work hard to go to college. She tolerates some of the other girls but wouldn't call them her friends, not even close to her roommate, Trixie. She wants to be a lawyer but has a wild streak that envies the freedom this biker has.

Paying so much attention when MB hits the mall, Echo recognizes the pair of boots worn by the rider with their blackened helmet. She has seen a guy named Andrew Pruitt wearing them about, feet up on the seats in Psych class with his clean-cut fraternity brother good looks and arrogance.

This couldn't be the same guy who is the Mad Biker but no one else wears the same boots.

Confronting Pruitt, Echo coerces him to take her on a ride. It leads to an incident outside a dance club where three people are taken to the campus clinic and one is delivered to the hospital in critical condition. Having worn a helmet, no one knows it was Echo on the back of the Harley with Pruitt, so he uses it as blackmail to have Echo go on dates with him about campus.

When the deaths start becoming less "accidental", Echo wants to go to the police buts knows they won't believe her over well to do Pruitt. Echo has been arrested by the campus police before for protesting so she knows she needs solid proof to prove Pruitt is the Mad Biker.

It's mostly a mystery in trying to find motive for all these wild rides but sometimes there isn't a real reason for a character's madness. The Biker seems pretty clean cut and dry about how it will end but the swerve saves it from being ho-hum.

[Sarah Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was okay, nothing amazing. Nightmare Hall was mentioned a couple of times but the book wasn't set there. The main character was rather stupid 😂

* Some nutter on a bike is going around driving on pavements and trying to hit people. Echo sees his boots and thinks she knows who it is.
* She finds Aaron Pruitt and tells him that she knows he's the biker and she wants him to take her for a ride. (Because that's obviously what one does when they identify someone who's driving around hurting people 🙄)
* They go for a ride and she loves it, she wants to go again and he says no. Then he comes back, takes her to town and .ows down 3 people outside a nightclub.
* She tells him she'll go to the police and he says he'll pin it all on her because nobody would believe it of him.
* The bike then pushes a car off a cliff and mows down a jogger.
* Echo goes to the police and they don't believe her. She finds a notebook but can't put all the clues together.
* Eventually we find out that Aaron wasn't the one killing people, it was a girl called DeeJay. She's pissed because her brother died after Aaron used a faulty part on his motorbike.
* DeeJay kills Aaron, Echo saves her from falling off the bridge, and then Echo goes to the police.

[Alice · Rating 5 out of 5]

The biker is a sinister story about someone on a bike terrifying the students at Salem U. Our main character Echo thinks she knows who it is and makes a very uninformed decision to ask for a ride.

At the start, echo annoyed me so much. But in saying that, She was a very real character who had dealt with abandonment but I found it hard to believe she made the choices she made. She redeemed herself in the end.

The other characters, Pruitt was a sleeze. Ugh. He played his part well but it would've been nice to see another ending for him.

This one is written different where all along we think we know who the person is. Other nightmare hall books we don't know but this was a welcome change. The twist at the end I didn't see coming and I'm okay with this twist. Probably one of the nightmare hall books that I really enjoyed.

[Vicki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good characters and an engaging story.

[Nba Yungboy]

It’s good

[Raymond]

This book was okay at first.It got a little boring after the first few pages.I thought it was mostly going to be about a guy in a bike,but it mostly talked about a group of friends going to the mall.I stop reading it even though i was almost to the end,but the book is okay.I'll give it a rate of 2 stars

[Claude · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, just when I thought I knew what was happening and who did it, I was thrown a plot twist I didn't see coming which quickly got twisted in itself from another character in all their sinister glory! Great read, recommended.

[Elizabeth Hubble · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had a lot of potential, and unfortunately it did not end as good as I had hoped it would. I actually like Pruitt's character up until the climax scene when he became all whiny. I was surprised by the culprit, but not in a good way.

[Jina · Rating 5 out of 5]

So the bad guy was of course the last person I expected. I actually had pinpointed it on Ruthanne but it wasn't her.