Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this book. Unfortunately I have been unable to get into it. DNF @ 23%.

Synopsis/blurb.....

Cop Andy Bastian is offered a thousand dollars in exchange for a favour – not an insignificant amount in the early Sixties.

He’s to deliver Ralph, the brilliant son of wealthy parents, to Kansas to be detained in a mental health facility.

It’s a long journey from California, but they don’t get far before it’s clear they’re being followed.

Initially suspecting the boy’s father is merely keeping a close eye, it quickly becomes clear that something much more sinister is afoot.

Just who is trying to get to them?

And can he get Ralph safely to the asylum before they do?

Praise for Richard Wormser

‘Realistically told… carefully controlled, fast paced’ – Kirkus Reviews
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My take......

Richard Wormser is not an author I had heard of until very recently with Endeavour Press re-issuing some of his novels from the early 60s. Drive East on 66 is the first of two books featuring Andy Bastian.

Bastian is a cop and has the opportunity to earn a few extra dollars, moonlighting as a delivery driver for a rich businessman, Sidney Bartlett. The cargo is the businessman's son, Ralph who needs to be delivered to an asylum, without fuss and avoiding any publicity. Our book is a road trip. Travelling with Bastian and Ralph is Olga Beaumont, a graduate student in psychology. Olga has been helping with Ralph at Bartlett's mansion.

Andy, with his cop spider sense soon gets the feeling that they are being followed. A mechanical breakdown with Bartlett's nearly new Cadillac enhancing that suspicion. Investigating further he soon dismisses the likely pursuers as too dim to be up to no good. Subsequent incidents occur on our trip which positively confirm that persons unknown do not want Ralph to reach his intended destination.

I quite enjoyed this one. We have the three main characters in the vehicle and its interesting seeing how the relationships between them all evolve during the course of our eventful road trip. Ralph's moods and mental well-being fluctuate wildly on our trip. Little stresses rapidly changing his personality from likeable, friendly, funny and great company to irrational and unpredictable. Bastian works well with Olga in recognising when he is about to mood-change and in heading off most of the possible explosions. Not always though.

Ralph outwits Bastian and Miss Beaumont on one occasion, leading to police involvement after an incident that leaves a young adult in hospital. Bastian has to use his skills and authority to divert police attention away from his young charge. An Indian reservation cop and the girl's father is not so easily put off. His reappearance later in the book adds to the tension.

Enjoyable without setting my reading world alight. I warmed to our trio as the novel progressed and was happy enough with the plot and the subsequent conclusion and rationale. I'd be happy reading more from Wormser in future.

4 from 5

Richard Wormser had 14 books published between 1934 and 1972, some under a pseudonym Ed Friend. He wrote Westerns as well as crime/mystery fiction. He died in 1977.

The University of Arizona has more info about him - here.
https://speccoll.library.arizona.edu/collections/richard-wormser-papers

Read in November, 2017
Published - 1961 (republished 2017 by Endeavour Press)
Page count - 174
Source - Net Galley

http://col2910.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/richard-wormser-drive-east-on-66-1961.html

A trip back to the 60s

This book was first published in 1961 and I wondered how it would hold up in current day. There were a few things I noticed that took me back to those days - cigarette smoking allowed anywhere, some phrasing that isn't politically correct for nowadays - but overall I enjoyed this story.

The protagonist of the story is Lt. Andrew Bastian who works as a policeman in Naranjo Vista, California. The police and fire departments are paid by the developer of this small town for the first ten years and when that same developer needs a personal errand handled, he calls Andy.

For a goodly sum of money (for the time period), he wants Andy to drive his disturbed teenage son along with the son's caregiver to an insane asylum (the father's words).

So what follows is a tale of that trip down Route 66 and Andy starts having very mixed feelings about his young charge (and the female caregiver too).

This was an enjoyable read and if you like police or detective stories from the 1960s, you should appreciate this offering.

I received this book from Endeavour Press through Net Galley in exchange for my unbiased review.

Think of Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise in Rain Man. Think of Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets. But Richard Wormser originally published his story about a drive through Route 66 in the American Southwest in 1961 Long before any of those popular movies were even thought about. And, Wormser gives us a top-down Cadillac convertible ride through the desert to deliver an idiot-savant to a special facility in a world of 1961 complete with small towns, slipped disc sock hop parties, and a far more innocent world. It’s a story with three great characters who play well off each other, the genius with mental issues who talk your socks off about anything, the no-nonsense police lieutenant hired to deliver him, and the college-age psychiatric nurse hired to keep an eye on the kid.

It’s a quick and easy read, told with a great narrative voice. What makes it all work is the background mystery that the police lieutenant encounters. After all, is there more to this than he was told? Is the kid dangerous? Is someone stalking them? The desert landscape is harsh and bleak and adds to the atmosphere and the feeling of being unsettled and creepy.

All in all, an enjoyable old paperback read, although you always felt like plot wise there was going to be more to the story.