We were pretty excited for Richard Wormser’s 1961 novel Drive East on 66. It sounded like fun—a thriller set on an iconic U.S. road we’ve traveled parts of at least a dozen times. This road, for our international readers who may not know, was and remains for many Americans the embodiment of a specific type of freedom consisting of endless miles, open spaces, small towns, and the possibility of all sorts of adventure. It’s a road where you’d expect to see strange sites and meet even stranger people. Which is pretty much what happens in Wormser’s tale.
The protagonist is a lawman named Andy Bastian, who’s paid $1,000 to drive a disturbed young man from California to a Kansas mental facility. Since the father wants to avoid publicity and the prospective patient is prone to violent freak-outs, flying or taking a train is not a possibility. That makes Route 66 the best way to go. It’s a fertile premise but for the most part the book feels unrealized. Its plot is unlikely and its characterizations feel off-the-mark, particularly that of the student-psychiatrist along for the drive whose job is to keep the patient on an even keel. She’s awful at her job, and the romance between her and Bastian is so clumsy an arranged marriage would feel more natural.
Wormser lost his way on this one, we think, but the book generated a follow-up, so there you go—our opinion means squat. If we had to guess, we’d say the concept alone helped put the story over for readers, because again, Route 66 is a piece of American iconography, and building a crime thriller around it will make up for a multitude of sins. Just not for us. The cover art here is uncredited, however some experts say it’s by Mitchell Hooks, and we agree it looks like his work, but we’re not experts. Absent official confirmation, mark it as unknown.
