RULES OF THE ROAD

Vile civilian political shenanigans disrupt the orderly and rather lonely world of a career soldier--in a change-of-pace novel by the author of Dress Gray and Army Blue This moody little thriller has a military hero, but there the resemblance to Truscott's big Army novels ends. Major Sam Butterfield is between wives, assignments, and commands, stopping on his way to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, to visit his mother on the family farm in southern Illinois and to sell the car he raced with considerable success on country courses when he was growing up. His mother can't get him to call up his old girlfriend, but she does talk him out of selling the car. Continuing the trip to Kentucky, he is sucked into a violent scene outside a restaurant where his bus has stopped and, within seconds, he becomes part of a pitched and lethal battle between a downstate political strongman and a couple of punks holding a handful of incriminating videotapes. This sudden alliance with the punks, who are in over their heads, requires Major Butterfield to call up all his old racing skills in the effort to escape the army of cops looking for them. As they flee, Sam and his new friends try to figure out just what the videotapes show and why anyone would want them enough to kill. Once he understands the enemy, Sam applies the best of his military lessons and a few choice high-tech weapons to the war. He gets the old racer out and calls that girlfriend too. Rather scary. The Deep South begins below Springfield, and Truscott plays on the atmosphere with considerable success.