Driven to Death

Strange Matter #3

by Engle, Johnny Ray Barnes

Darren Donaldson is staring out his bedroom window at 2 o'clock in the morning, panicked, looking down the street for any sign of his brother. His older brother, David, snuck out of the house at midnight, taking the car as usual, making Darren promise he wouldn't tell. He's been gone for three hours, the longest he's ever been gone. Something must have happened. Something dreadful. Wait! There's David now! The car is coming down the street. He's killed the engine, coasting toward the driveway. He's scrambling out of the car, pushing it from behind. He looks frantic, terrified! What's going on? He's signaling for help, looking over his shoulder as if. . . Headlights snap on at the end of the street as an engine roars to life. David is screaming! Something is chasing him. . . and it isn't stopping.

Genres: Young Adult

Audio Cassette

First published November 1, 1995

Reviews

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Surprise review! With the stuff I have going on in the next few days, this was the best time I could fit in the series/entry the randomizer picked next. I kicked the February Pike read to the following week so I could have done this during the week when I had time but now's a good time as any. Either way, Strange Matter time again!

Here Marty Engle takes the reigns for a simple but satisfying fun tale. Darren Donaldson is into models, especially ships. He and his older teen brother Donald have a troubled thing with going on, so he didn't help in making his latest creation, a pirate ship. One night after a trip McDonald's, a mysterious car starts appearing and following Donald. Then things escalte as the car turns out to be full of 3 teens that are pissed when Donald accidently hits their car a bit. Now they kidnap the kids to bring them to their ghost father.

It's pretty basic but it works in its favor. The thing with this book is that it takes a turn in the latter half, as spoilers, the ghost dad is a pirate. Yep, it becomes a pirate book. It foreshadows this with the pirate model ship, and by having Darren be reminded of pirate stuff and explain it to us. That's a bit forced.

It's not quite as jarring as you'd think, sorta. With how the ghost teens talk and such, I wonder how they are connected to the pirate guy so it is a bit off, like Engle had these two ideas and just put them together. But in execution, I like how it builds to that and the pirate stuff proves to be solid.

BTW, these are the same Donaldson' from Strange Forces, so they do become important. Darren is fairly standard as a protagonist but he was passable. But he's 13 which breaks the rules damn it. I generally liked his thing with Donald. It feels fairly releastic, as they bicker but we are told they do tend to get along in other cases. There's a small thing with Donald getting them into this and later apologizing.

It's nice but I wish it was bigger. It's not that deep and isn't expanded upon as much as I hoped. Early on he's grumpy and I was thinking we'd find out he's going through something, but nah. That's my main problem, I wish we got more. As it is, it's still more than we tend to get at least.

It gets started quickly but is a bit aimless in the first portion, thankfully it does pick up as we get into these ghost teens. The writing has a few clunky bits (mostly by refusing to use contractions) but gets better once the scares kick in. There's a lot of good action and atmosphere here, with parts that sell the dread of all this well, and some good gross ghost descriptions.

I was pretty hooked in the latter half as this all ramps up, and there's decent humor in places that is well placed. The ghost teens are passable villains even if they aren't anything amazing. And if the cover gave you Duel vibes, then they think ahead, as there's straight up a whole scene where they rent Duel and explain the plot of it. Not even kidding. Not a reference I expected but it was cool.

I've said before that Marty's entries can struggle to explain stuff but this is simple enough to the point where it's not a big problem. We don't get big info dumps but it's easy to wrap your head around it. The resolution is fine, it's at least payoff to something setup. There's a ghost rule in here that's weird to me but again, it gets paid off at least.

There's no twist for once, but the ending, while kinda decent, is fairly abrupt without a more normal wrap up where they go home and all that. I think that could have made this a bit stronger.

But overall, Driven to Death is a pretty solid entry. The pacing and escalation is good, leading to a fun engaging and creepy ride. Not amazing by any means, but despite not having the most high concept idea ever, it manages to get on the higher end of my ranking. It's a bit clunky in spots, but another ride with a sea fairing edge.

CONTINUITY ALERT: Shelly of No Substitutions gets a mention, as well Skinny Joe who later is part of Strange Forces.

Side note, one blog says this one has typos, but I didn't notice anything, just the usual caps and such. Hardly any useless italics at least! No idea when the next in the ripoff series cycle will be, besides the Pike I've got something coming up, so we'll see.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was better than I expected. Darren is an engaging narrator--smarter than most Goosebumps protagonists and pretty sassy. The story takes some wild turns and is coated with bizarre imagery like '50s greaser teenagers plowing through walls and driving up buildings and across oceans in their junker ghost car. I enjoyed the book's sense of humor, especially its wry ending with the evil teenagers' father, and the small-town '90s setting where teens hang out at the local McDonald's parking lot next to the video rental store.

[Lacy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was nothing I expected and I thought it was alright but not the best book that iv'e read. If your young like maybe around the ages of 7 and 11 then I would say that you would probably like it if your into horror stuff for that age range.

[Lacy Phillips · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was nothing I expected and I thought it was alright but not the best book I’ve” read. If your young like maybe around the ages of 7 and 11 then I would say you would probably like it if you’re into horror stuff for that age range.

[Jose Acosta · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this book was very interesting because the author makes you think about the story in which they are haunted by ghost and an old pirate crew the main characters are brothers and at the end there is a really good twist to the story and I think you should read this book if you like mystery & horror story's.

[Cws]

JMAR4-Eng

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good YA story. listened with Pat around Halloween.