“Prolific author and film director Eric Red has previously shown us very memorably that those long open sparsely populated highways just aren’t safe both with his screenplay The Hitcher, filmed with Rutger Hauer in 1986 and more recently with the homicidal trucker in his novel White Knuckle, which is in pre-production at the moment.

Well, put the key in the ignition and rev up, Eric Red takes us on another dizzying, high octane, pedal to the metal thriller. Stopping Power is a gripping thriller that evokes the very best cinematic vehicular mayhem movies. Imagine Vanishing Point, crossed with Speed and the infamous O.J. Simpson car chase and enjoy the wild ride. Stephanie Power is taking a well-deserved break with her teenaged daughter. They’re on a road trip in a luxury motorhome. Pulling up to refuel, Stephanie finds the motorhome and daughter missing. Both have been taken by a desperate and lethal bank robber Ilse Bakke, who demands that Stephanie drive around in her original getaway car, as a decoy for the police while Bakke drives to freedom in the other direction. If Stephanie stops, or is caught by the increasingly trigger-happy police – the daughter dies. Of course, Bakke can see everything on the live TV news feed.

Stopping Power is a rapidly paced page turner from the first paragraph, and is tightly written with a staccato beat that screams for the book to be filmed. This is Red’s uniquely visual writing style – he writes like a film director. An interesting device used to great effect in this book is applying the normal third person narrative for the bulk of the book, but using the first person for the sequences detailing Stephanie’s thoughts and feelings as the main protagonist. But IS she really the main character? Ilse Bakke as the truly psychopathic schizophrenic villain is a memorably disturbing and well drawn character, eliciting both sympathy, repugnance and fear. She is the perfect character foil to test just how far a mother will go to protect her daughter, and to explore the beginnings of Stockholm Syndrome between Bakke and her hostage.

All in all, this is another triumph for Eric Red.

4/5 stars.” – Robin Pierce, Starburst Magazine

The paperback is available in bookstores and on Amazon at amzn.to/3nKcc8V

Kindle edition will be released on December 3rd.

Out in trade paperback from Seidelman & Company!  The book is available in bookstores and on Amazon at https://amzn.to/3nKcc8V

Kindle edition will be released on December 3rd.

Fantastic YouTube program on my horror thriller BODY PARTS!  Big thanks to Arrow in the Head at JoBlo.com for one of the best pieces anyone has everdone on the movie, in a beautifully edited and narrated episode I was thrilled with.  Check it out!

Excited to unveil the cover for my brand new thriller novel STOPPING POWER! The artwork is by the amazing John Gallagher. The book will be published in trade paperback and Kindle editions on December 3rd by Seidelman & Company. It is available for pre-order from the publisher or on Amazon at https://amzn.to/2XVuvzn

The publisher’s description is “Devoted mother Stephanie Power is on a road trip in Houston, Texas with her teenage daughter, Libby. They stop at a gas station to refuel, and when Stephanie comes back from paying, she finds her daughter and their RV have suddenly vanished. Ilsa Bakke, a dangerous female bank robber on the run, just pulled an armored car heist that netted 60 million dollars in bearer bonds. She murdered her own gang, escaping in a getaway car with the Texas cops hot on her tail. She switched out her car with the mother’s at the gas station and kidnapped Libby, leaving her getaway car with the keys in it. Stephanie gets a call from Ilsa on her cell, ordering her to get into the bank robber’s getaway car and drive on the highway at high speed and keep driving or Ilsa will kill Libby – if Stephanie stops or gets caught by the cops, her daughter is dead – if she stays alive and uncaptured for one hour, Ilsa promises to release Libby safely. The desperate mother has no choice, jumping in the getaway car and leading police on a high-speed chase, the female bank robber using her as a decoy for the cops while she makes her escape in the opposite direction with Libby and the stolen loot. The game of automative cat-and-mouse shifts into high gear as Stephanie Power drives for her daughter’s life, struggling to stay alive and elude the cops, knowing she must somehow catch up to the RV with Libby and Ilsa so she can rescue her kid and take down the real perpetrator the police are after.”

Proud to unveil the jacket cover art for the brand new edition of my novel DON’T STAND SO CLOSE from Seidelman & Company. The gorgeous wraparound artwork is by my friend the brilliant illustrator John Gallagher, one of my favorite collaborators who I’ve been lucky to have create the covers for most of my novels. Here John’s cover perfectly evokes the atmosphere of the novel with a classic image infused with nostalgia and mystery.

“It was 1998. The three young people Matthew Poe, Grace McCormack and Rusty Shaw were friends, high school seniors in a small Iowa town about to graduate and go out in the world. On the edge of adulthood, it was a time of awakening where everything felt fresh and new. Confused, carefree, they shared their doubts and their joys, trying to find out who they were and where they fit in. Their teacher Ms. Hayden helped make it all make sense for them, a friend who understood what it was like to be their age. Linda Hayden touched Matthew, Grace and Rusty in different ways and two of them would never forget her as long as they lived. But discovering everything for the first time, it is what you don’t know that can hurt you. The three teenagers would come face-to-face with true evil. The choice would be growing up fast or not growing up all. But what did not destroy them would make them stronger for in the darkest depths of the human heart they will find a light that shows them the way. Coming-of-age has never been so fraught with wonder and peril in this unforgettable novel of what it means to be young.”

DON’T STAND SO CLOSE will be published on August 2nd in trade paperback and on August 23rd in Kindle editions.

Trade paperback edition is available for pre-order from: https://bit.ly/3hqjfBI Kindle edition is available for pre-order from: https://amzn.to/3yGZDiw

More to come!