Hooked Up
A lot can be said about a NASCAR fan by the driver he follows.
Tony Stewart fans have a rebellious streak.
Jeff Gordon fans are sympathizers of the discriminated.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. fans are either women or extremely secure men.
In the case of Glad Wycznewski, a character in "Hooked Up," a NASCAR murder mystery written by Joyce and Jim Lavene, Joe Nemechek is his driver of choice.
It's a funny choice, given the fact that Nemechek doesn't even race in the book, which is set during a race weekend at Dover International Speedway.
Glad, a retired cop from Chicago who marries a Southern Belle who loves NASCAR as much as he does, has an appreciation for the underdog. Nemechek is the epitome of NASCAR underdog -- talented enough to win about a race a year, but never funded well enough to win any more.
Glad definitely scored the biggest win of his life when he married Ruby, who is repeatedly described as endowed, tempting, seductive and determined. Nemechek didn't have very many wins over his career, which makes every one all the more memorable, kind of like the day Ruby married Glad.
Glad and Nemechek have a lot of things in common, including a tendency to turn a harmless coincidence into a disaster. Glad and Nemechek both possess a wealth of talent and lack the resources to use much of it.
As for Ruby, she follows Jimmie Johnson, which seems to be the safe choice for any married woman. But she also had some sort of relationship with Dale Earnhardt Jr., which makes Glad a little uneasy and vulnerable.
Whenever he sees or thinks about Ruby and Junior together, Glad shows an uncharacteristic sign of hesitation. And that's one of the problems with the story. The characters are extremely flat, stereotypical and predictable. But it's about what's expected from a book that starts out like a rendition of "The Three Little Bears" and ends with an account of the NASCAR race that reads like a version of "The Hare and the Tortoise."
Still, a murder at Dover on a race weekend makes for compelling reading, complete with casinos, guns, twin brothers, $10 million and a extremely finicky cat.
One of the best parts of the book is Glad and Ruby's Track Log at the end of the book. If anyone is planning on going to a race at Dover, it is a must read, complete with a track history, nearby restaurants, traffic conditions and a description of Miles the Monster, a comic book character rooted in the race track.
"Hooked Up" is published by Midnight Ink and is the second in a series. The first, "Swapping Paint," is also published by Midnight Ink.
Both can be found at midnightinkbooks.com or ordered at Amazon.com.