Pit-stop [Paperback]

Pit Stop follows the journey of ten individuals...actually, no, first line in and already I've misguided you. Pit Stop is not about a journey, at all. It's a story of waiting; ten people, waiting for their last voyage, a one-way ticket to Hell. Impressively, everyone is dead from page one. It's good to start on a high note.

Ten souls wait in purgatory, and they're waiting, strangely, in a service station. The Pit Stop, on Route 66 in Arizona, is somewhere I really wouldn't fancy a coffee. The trip to Hell is not a pleasant thought, and if I was to use my deepest and darkest grey matter when concocting an image of the being that would guide me to the only place worse than Great Yarmouth, I'd be thinking spikes, tentacles, mucus, blood and possibly a little faeces. Bearing in mind the horrible nature of Larken's warped mind, I was expecting a monstrosity from the very bowels of Hell...oh yeah, that's sort of obvious, as it technically is something from the bowels of Hell. Still, I was expecting something a little scarier than a bus. However, as I got to know the bus and its psychopathic, ultra-powerful driver, Ramsey, I hoped that the bus would stop being so damned nasty. The bus and its driver are desperate to take the ten occupants of the diner straight to Lucifer and Pit Stop is the tale of their bid for freedom.

Pit Stop is unquestionably horror. It is gruesome, vile and disturbing in its imagery and Larken makes sure the reader not just sees the horrific violence, they feel it too. On top of that, with a set of characters lined up to be royally buggered in Hell, you know you are going to be in the same company as some rather unsavoury beasts. Paedophiles, murderers and prostitutes are the order of the day, but we have some heroes to make this a wonderfully eclectic mix of the damned. Scott Alders and Dustin Calloway are the boys you'll be rooting for. Dustin's a bad man with a talent for avoiding any heat that's coming down on him (death not included). However, his heart is questionably in the right place. Scott Alders is the interesting one. He's a straight down the line cop who puts his job first. From the start, you'll be wondering what Office Alders did to earn a trip to Hell, possibly my only point of contention in the story.

Is Pit Stop scary? Pit Stop is a slasher tale with a beautifully evil stalker, Ramsey, who is roguely charismatic for someone who doesn't really say much, and whose main role is to maim, torment and torture. Personally, I don't find slashers particularly scary, even though I love them, and I get my kicks from the inventiveness of the violence and my affinity to the characters. Pit Stop had me routing for Scott and Dustin who are wonderfully linked. The book also appealed to my carnal instincts and my desire for bloodlust was well and truly satisfied. I desperately wanted to see some of the characters torn into a thousand gory pieces and Mr. Larken gave the mob what they wanted. To answer my initial question, I didn't find Pit Stop particularly scary, but that wasn't in the slightest bit detrimental to my enjoyment of the book (incidentally, I've just picked up his latest book, The Hollows, and read the first chapter and that scared the bejesus out of me. I'm hooked already).

Is Pit Stop worth reading? Oh yes, undoubtedly so. It's an exceptionally good read from start to finish and Ben Larken should be extremely proud of what he has achieved. If you read this, Ben, not many fictional bad guys have quite grabbed my attention as much as Ramsey, the bus driver, and if you ever base a book solely on him, I'll camp outside the bookstore, the night before, to get hold of it.

Listen out for Ben Larken. I won't be the least bit surprised if you hear the name in the future.

Pit-stop is an extraordinary horror / noir thriller. It presents Ben Larken's imaginative concept of a place we all dwell on but hope never to reside inside: the state of limbo. What really happens when we die? The devout among us may say they have no doubts and maybe some of the ten victims of fatal accidents on Route 66 didn't either. Some would assume our atoms are given up to be recycled, and our intelligence, memories, spirit, soul, essence? They are not electrons even if we make use of them while incorporate. The fate of us all is fascinating, and Larken works us like an expert door-to-door salesman in making us want to follow his characters, yet run away from others.
Waking up in the Pit-Stop Grill knowing quickly that you and the other customers have recently died on the same highway, mostly in gruesome conditions, sends a chill into your stomach. How come you still have thoughts, can feel, and hear, talk to the others? Who is the waitress, Holly, laughing at their predicament, serving terminal threats with the undrinkable coffee?
With consummate literary skill, Larken crafts each of the characters so that you believe in and care for what happens to them even those who committed evil while alive. He uses the readers' own fear of death and purgatory, along with their imagined freak-outs to tease and make us want to turn the pages. One of the two main characters is police officer Scott Alder, who tortures his memory to figure what he'd done so bad in his life to warrant such angst. Dustin is the youth who inadvertently killed him. He realizes that and so we have the intriguing situation of a young man who although he committed plenty of minor felonies when alive, feels guilty while in limbo. Marvelous. Those two occupy most of the points of view, and that's fine. They are different in their alive experiences but have a common post-accident goal to cheat the devil. Did I say devil? A twisted inhuman being, Ramsey, comes to the diner to collect them on his bus to hell, Incredibly, and yet believable enough to pull you, dear reader, along, the tormented souls discover they can resist the soul-gatherer. They know they can't succeed ultimately and yet it seems as if they might. Maybe they do. Good novels have a hook in the first few pages but this premise of cheating the devil's coachman (bus driver) is a fishing line with hooks all along to the last chapter.
There have been many stories using our intrigue over the state of limbo. In Dante's Divine Comedy, it isn't a pit-stop grill but a castle, but there the similarity ends. There is a kind of divine comedy in Larken's novel in that in spite of the nail-bitingly awfulness, some of the characters are able to bolster each other's morale and often that is with just the right balance of ironic humour. Another literary comparison is in an episode of the Twilight Zone where a clown, soldier, dancer, Scotsman, and hobo realize the large box they are in is limbo. Pit-Stop continues with more depth and satisfying horror than that TV episode.
A neat trick rarely found in debut novelists is to allow readers to learn about the characters through the eyes of the others. By showing us their physical descriptions and foibles this way Larken avoids the info dump pen portraits writers usually load onto their readers. Thanks for that and for using original metaphors and similes. I particularly liked Holly with the teeth the colour of old paper, and cloud shadows that slid across the desert floor like sharks beneath the surface. That particular image resurfaces, so to speak, later with the soul-collecting bus; a cunning reflecting literary ploy. Well done.
I can strongly recommend this book. It will shake your faith if you have one, make you wish you had faith otherwise. As an atheist and thus knowing there's no hell or heaven, I now believe in limbo.

Pit-Stop written by Ben Larken and published by LL-Publications is Mr Larken's first published work. At 241 pages and with a layout probably equal to that of a 300 pager, the book appears of reasonable length.

Ben Larken was born in Fort Worth, Texas, where he now resides with his wife, children and pets. He has also lived in Arizona and New Mexico.

The cover art for Pit-Stop by Ben Larken was created by Helen E. H. Madden and stands out with its eerie quality. There is a lot of red colouring which to most will imply blood. The title and author name stand boldly against the backdrop of a red petrol pump reading Total Price $6.66 and a grinning skull above. The cover alone would spark my curiosity and has me wondering exactly what lies in wait.

Above the synopsis are the words Last Chance At Redemption For The Next Million Years...
Having read the four paragraph synopsis I am eager to read this book and I am in no doubt that the last words of the synopsis will ring true. One thing is clear: you'll think twice before you make your next Pit-Stop.

The plot of the book reads like a bad joke, ten people find themselves in an eerie diner without any memory of how they got there or why, and no way out. All that's known is what waitress Holly tells them, "A bus is coming". So how can you escape from somewhere when you have no idea where you are, how long you've been there, how you got there and how to leave when even your own mind is telling you to stay where you are.

Mr Larken has created a range of characters so realistic you could be sat there with them in the Pit-Stop amongst them they include a junkie, a cop, and two sisters. What lies in wait for them when the bus finally arrives? And why can't they leave the Diner until then? Is there life beyond the Pit-Stop Grill? Or is the outside just as terrifying as being stuck inside? One thing's for certain even in death a cop's job is never done.

Personally having had the displeasure of both being a waitress and having to wear a name tag, Mr Larken has certainly captured the frustration of the job and any job which carries a name tag, in all its glory in the first few pages alone.

When all is said and done trust at the most darkest and dangerous of times is a hard thing to find when self doubt plays it tormenting games, can the unlikely group band together and conquer the greatest of all enemies, death. Can they out run their fate, maybe change it?

The story is not as predictable as some books with some great twists, turns and u-turns which will have you itching to know what is going to happen. I didn't want to put the book down for fear of what might happen next. On the downside there are a couple of mistakes with regard to editing but it is so few it does little to hamper the story itself. I would highly recommend this book to anyone above the age of 18 years of age, and I look forward to reading more work by Mr Larken even if it means another visit to the deadliest grill in Arizona. Pit-Stop by Ben Larken definitely gets 4.5 stars.

R.N. Hadley
(http://rnhadleybookreviews.blogspot.com)