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Mile Marker Zero
There’s a thin line of desperation between fame and infamy, where being a number turns deadly.
Tired of never achieving his goals, an ageing blue collar worker’s rage at the world reaches a boiling point. After a lifetime of failures, disappointments, and shattered dreams, his job has proven to be a fast track to nowhere. His wife left him for a younger man and his emotionally distant son has disappeared from his life. What’s left of his life has been hollowed out, leaving him invisible, forgotten, and unimportant in a world where the American dream is on life support, if it ever existed at all.
Tired of never achieving much of anything, he’s determined to change all that, taking charge of what’s left of his life. He sets an ambitious goal and develops a clear plan to achieve it. For the next year he will kill one person a week, becoming the world’s greatest serial killer.
His morbid adventure zigzags across the country conjuring emotions ranging from happiness to heartache, to physical pain, to fear, and to anger. Week by week, as the highway miles mount and the body count of unsuspecting souls rises, he gets closer to his goal, but circumstances threaten to halt his progress. Will you be this week’s victim before the road ends at mile marker zero?
Tired of never achieving his goals, an ageing blue collar worker’s rage at the world reaches a boiling point. After a lifetime of failures, disappointments, and shattered dreams, his job has proven to be a fast track to nowhere. His wife left him for a younger man and his emotionally distant son has disappeared from his life. What’s left of his life has been hollowed out, leaving him invisible, forgotten, and unimportant in a world where the American dream is on life support, if it ever existed at all.
Tired of never achieving much of anything, he’s determined to change all that, taking charge of what’s left of his life. He sets an ambitious goal and develops a clear plan to achieve it. For the next year he will kill one person a week, becoming the world’s greatest serial killer.
His morbid adventure zigzags across the country conjuring emotions ranging from happiness to heartache, to physical pain, to fear, and to anger. Week by week, as the highway miles mount and the body count of unsuspecting souls rises, he gets closer to his goal, but circumstances threaten to halt his progress. Will you be this week’s victim before the road ends at mile marker zero?
274 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 19, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 12, 2022
Mile Marker Zero by the award-winning mystery/ suspense/ thriller author Benny Sims is a perfect book for the Halloween season. It checks both the creepy and disturbing boxes, guaranteeing a skin-crawling experience. But it’s not because it’s populated by ghosts, witches, werewolves, vampires, or zombies. Instead, the main character is a monster in the guise of an easily ignored retiree. It will leave you to wonder about the strangers who pass you on the sidewalk or in the supermarket aisles. Could the guy that follows you, maybe a bit too closely, harbor some unknown evil inside? What about that strange-looking character sitting across the aisle on the city bus or commuter train? The car behind you, the headlights you see in your rearview mirror, is someone waiting for you to exit so they can take advantage of you while you top off your tank?
Mile Marker Zero is about a goal-oriented serial killer. How’s that for words you don’t usually use together? The main character’s self-appointed mission is separating countless, nameless, undeserving innocents from those who happen to cross his path, sneaking up on them when their only mistake was being at the wrong place at the wrong time. He has prepared in advance, learning the best techniques to make it quick and bloodless – because he hates the sight of blood. He carries a calendar with him to keep track of his adventures, creating a weekly ritual around his Sunday morning cup of coffee at whatever diner he comes to in his latest theater of operations. Always before, he has been the perennial loser but as a retirement gift to himself, he decides to spend what money he has saved accomplishing something for once: killing one person each week for an entire year while crisscrossing the country to perplex and evade any authority that might have picked up his scent.
I don’t know if you can read this book without shedding some tears, whether for the numerous innocent victims or the plight of those in the peripheries who suffer the consequences of the main character’s methodical carnage. We learn something about his past, his family, who, and what was important. And this is what makes Sims’ achievement singular in my estimation. Not only are we seeing events through the eyes of a deeply disturbed individual but also, at times we find we share some common ground. And that is what is most disturbing. Could there be a monster within each of us that, given the right circumstances and conditions, might appear in a moment of greatest weakness? You have a cold-blooded killer who can be completely relatable in an eerie way that might remind you of someone’s grandfather – or yourself. What’s worse is he offs a few people that maybe deserve it. If you can maintain detachment from the lack of humanity contained in his acts of murder, he serves as an anti-hero with some odd standards but standards, nonetheless.
Certainly, there is commentary lurking in the background of this story about how screwed up our modern world has become and how unimportant other people can become to us, making them completely disposable in lieu of serving some overall mission. It begs to ask whether we should be less isolated and more aware of what is going on in the lives of those around us? After reading Mile Marker Zero you will consider what goes on in the minds of those we’d rather ignore? How often do we encounter a potential serial killer while never once suspecting? All it takes is for someone or something to flick the invisible switch that unleashes the unimaginable. How many of us have unwittingly had a brush with death courtesy of some interruption that distracted some self-made grim reaper?
When you turn the final page of this one, with the story concluded, you wonder if the main character ever put even half of his effort and focus on other pursuits over his sad lifetime, perhaps he wouldn’t have adopted such a psychotic plan.
Review is based on an author-supplied pre-publication version of the book.
Mile Marker Zero is about a goal-oriented serial killer. How’s that for words you don’t usually use together? The main character’s self-appointed mission is separating countless, nameless, undeserving innocents from those who happen to cross his path, sneaking up on them when their only mistake was being at the wrong place at the wrong time. He has prepared in advance, learning the best techniques to make it quick and bloodless – because he hates the sight of blood. He carries a calendar with him to keep track of his adventures, creating a weekly ritual around his Sunday morning cup of coffee at whatever diner he comes to in his latest theater of operations. Always before, he has been the perennial loser but as a retirement gift to himself, he decides to spend what money he has saved accomplishing something for once: killing one person each week for an entire year while crisscrossing the country to perplex and evade any authority that might have picked up his scent.
I don’t know if you can read this book without shedding some tears, whether for the numerous innocent victims or the plight of those in the peripheries who suffer the consequences of the main character’s methodical carnage. We learn something about his past, his family, who, and what was important. And this is what makes Sims’ achievement singular in my estimation. Not only are we seeing events through the eyes of a deeply disturbed individual but also, at times we find we share some common ground. And that is what is most disturbing. Could there be a monster within each of us that, given the right circumstances and conditions, might appear in a moment of greatest weakness? You have a cold-blooded killer who can be completely relatable in an eerie way that might remind you of someone’s grandfather – or yourself. What’s worse is he offs a few people that maybe deserve it. If you can maintain detachment from the lack of humanity contained in his acts of murder, he serves as an anti-hero with some odd standards but standards, nonetheless.
Certainly, there is commentary lurking in the background of this story about how screwed up our modern world has become and how unimportant other people can become to us, making them completely disposable in lieu of serving some overall mission. It begs to ask whether we should be less isolated and more aware of what is going on in the lives of those around us? After reading Mile Marker Zero you will consider what goes on in the minds of those we’d rather ignore? How often do we encounter a potential serial killer while never once suspecting? All it takes is for someone or something to flick the invisible switch that unleashes the unimaginable. How many of us have unwittingly had a brush with death courtesy of some interruption that distracted some self-made grim reaper?
When you turn the final page of this one, with the story concluded, you wonder if the main character ever put even half of his effort and focus on other pursuits over his sad lifetime, perhaps he wouldn’t have adopted such a psychotic plan.
Review is based on an author-supplied pre-publication version of the book.
March 13, 2023
Mile Marker Zero is not my typical read. I’m really more of a romance girl, but I’m always down to branch out every now and then. Throughout this book, we follow Jon Doe (yes really), a bored retiree who hasn’t accomplished much in life. He’s retired from his unfulfilling factory job, his wife left him, he’s estranged from his son, and he really has nothing much to live for. Bored in his retirement and a little bitter from his lack of life accomplishments, Jon sets out with one very simple goal. For the next year, he wants to kill one person every week, earning him the title of the world’s greatest serial killer.
The beginning of the book is admittedly a little slow for me, even though Jon is driving around with a body in the trunk. I understood his bitterness, but still, after every kill I kept finding myself wondering why the heck he was doing this. He really seemed to have no reason other than his goal to accomplish something in life. The book really picked up for me when Jon decided he wanted to reunite with his estranged son. It seemed to give him a new purpose in life other than his serial killer goal. You can’t help but feel bad for the guy. He’s accomplished nothing and has no one. How good can your life ever be if you have no one to share it with?
Sprinkled throughout the book, we see bits and pieces of something happening with Jon that ends up being the cherry on top of his already shit life. Despite the fact that he’s a murderer, you end up rooting for him. By the end of the book, you realize there’s truly only one way it can end. He will definitely get caught, but will he accomplish his goal before that happens? While the ending was bittersweet, it was a * chef’s kiss* ending.
I think this book was especially hard for me to read because I know the author, he’s my father in law. His voice, his mannerisms, his hobbies, are all woven through this book. I kept highlighting parts and showing them to my husband like WOW this is a classic Benny Sims-ism, as we like to call it. It’s also funny reading about a retiree with an unlikely hobby because my father in law is also a retiree. Are we sure he’s only writing in that writing shed? ;) But seriously, this book is so different from his other book that I read because I can really see his voice throughout it. And Jon Doe spends some time in Huntsville, Alabama where my husband and I currently live and where my in laws used to live. Different locations and tidbits throughout the story just felt very familiar. There’s even a character that sounds suspiciously like my mother in law ;)
Overall, I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about this book, but I’m glad I ended up enjoying it. It’s becoming somewhat alarming how empathetic I am towards some fictional serial killers (Jon Doe and Joe Goldberg from You). Either way, this romance girl is happy yet again about her small venture away from happily ever afters.
The beginning of the book is admittedly a little slow for me, even though Jon is driving around with a body in the trunk. I understood his bitterness, but still, after every kill I kept finding myself wondering why the heck he was doing this. He really seemed to have no reason other than his goal to accomplish something in life. The book really picked up for me when Jon decided he wanted to reunite with his estranged son. It seemed to give him a new purpose in life other than his serial killer goal. You can’t help but feel bad for the guy. He’s accomplished nothing and has no one. How good can your life ever be if you have no one to share it with?
Sprinkled throughout the book, we see bits and pieces of something happening with Jon that ends up being the cherry on top of his already shit life. Despite the fact that he’s a murderer, you end up rooting for him. By the end of the book, you realize there’s truly only one way it can end. He will definitely get caught, but will he accomplish his goal before that happens? While the ending was bittersweet, it was a * chef’s kiss* ending.
I think this book was especially hard for me to read because I know the author, he’s my father in law. His voice, his mannerisms, his hobbies, are all woven through this book. I kept highlighting parts and showing them to my husband like WOW this is a classic Benny Sims-ism, as we like to call it. It’s also funny reading about a retiree with an unlikely hobby because my father in law is also a retiree. Are we sure he’s only writing in that writing shed? ;) But seriously, this book is so different from his other book that I read because I can really see his voice throughout it. And Jon Doe spends some time in Huntsville, Alabama where my husband and I currently live and where my in laws used to live. Different locations and tidbits throughout the story just felt very familiar. There’s even a character that sounds suspiciously like my mother in law ;)
Overall, I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about this book, but I’m glad I ended up enjoying it. It’s becoming somewhat alarming how empathetic I am towards some fictional serial killers (Jon Doe and Joe Goldberg from You). Either way, this romance girl is happy yet again about her small venture away from happily ever afters.
October 13, 2022
For a gray-haired older man who considers breakfast to be either nothing or pastry and a styrofoam cup of coffee from a convenience store, this story will give you a whole new perspective on what murder looks like.
After failing at a career, marriage, and as a parent, becoming a serial killer seems the only way to be successful at something and make people take notice. Why not make it interesting and plan on killing one person each week for an entire year? That's an interesting spin, right?
***I received an early copy of this book for an honest review. Now go read this book!
After failing at a career, marriage, and as a parent, becoming a serial killer seems the only way to be successful at something and make people take notice. Why not make it interesting and plan on killing one person each week for an entire year? That's an interesting spin, right?
***I received an early copy of this book for an honest review. Now go read this book!
August 27, 2022
A rollicking and wry satire on American violence
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews