A TRUCKER'S SONG

A serial killer stalks male truckers and musicians after being raped and infected with HIV.

In a story that features country crooning, mass murders and a plethora of pickled penises, it’s difficult to pinpoint the most distressing aspect. Dawn “Sugar” Wilson, songwriter-cum-serial killer, seeks vengeance for her rape by implementing the TITS method: Torture, Interrogate, Terrorize and Slay. Using her abundant sex appeal, she lures victims to a secret room, where she masturbates in front of them, has sex with them and then snips off their members. Afterward, she leaves behind poems for the police (led by the equally sexy detective “Booda,” so nicknamed because of her Buddhist beliefs), earning her the appellation “The Poet.” Meanwhile, trucker Tex Jones, a man who scrawls lyrics on the backs of napkins, has a stroke of good fortune when a waitress fishes one such gem out of the garbage and gives it to his cousin C.J., who sends it to a Nashville producer. Tex soon finds himself producing the song with the help of The Poet’s sister, Roberta. “A Trucker’s Song” becomes a breakout hit and leads Booda to recruit Tex and company to assist with her unconventional plan to catch the killer: a symposium featuring academics and writers trying to get inside The Poet’s mind, and a performance by C.J., his friend Chief and Roberta. The characters try their darndest to be likeable, but their annoying habit of laying on thick hillbilly accents in attempts to be funny makes them tedious. The explicit sex scenes and brutally disgusting murders quickly become odious, and a belated attempt to make the killer sympathetic is comical. Even the plot, which shows an inkling of promise, collapses under the weight of the completely illogical symposium and the inexplicable dropping of a seemingly important connection between The Poet’s notes and the universities of Texas and Tennessee. Worst of all, readers don’t even get the lyrics to the titular song.

Unrelentingly corny and patently absurd.