The Suicide Motor Club

Starred review from May 2, 2016
Buehlman (The Lesser Dead) confirms his talent with this ambitiously structured rendering of the havoc and mayhem wrought by a sadistic pack of muscle car–obsessed vampires as they cut a homicidal path across 1960s America’s highways. When they snatch latent psychic Judith Lamb’s son from the backseat of the family vehicle and then cause an accident that kills her husband, they set her on a quest that’s destined to end in grisly destruction. Armed and educated by a cagey group of vampire hunters and prophetic dreams of failure, Judith hunts down the gang and seeks vengeance for her murdered family. With an entire section devoted to introducing the Suicide Motor Club and the inclusion of an older, progressive vampire repulsed by the gang’s wanton sadism, Buehlman successfully and unromantically portrays the brutal viciousness of their violence, yet gives them enough character and nuance to carry the reader’s morbid interest. Buehlman’s latest is gripping the whole way through, with a perfectly poignant ending.