The Tomcat Line Series: Book 1 by Stevie Woods
The Hitch-Hiker (The Tomcat Line 1) by Stevie Woods
The starting point of this novel could have been good material for a suspence/thriller one (I don't know, probably Spielberg left me with that idea when there is a truck and an highway...), and instead the output is almost a light comedy. Ian is an anthropologist/archaeologist who is trying to reach home-plate running away from his enemies: he has an artefact the evil men want and he is not ready to let it go. Without money and not trusting the police, Ian is hitchhiking from South America to Chicago and more or less near Austin he asks a lift to Mac, an older but still handsome trucker whose truck is like a little home on wheels, double bed and all. Soon Ian will learn that Mac is a former Navy officer and he is not exactly a “simple” trucker; plus Mac has a very personal interest in Ian, cute and young, or at least at 34 years old, younger than him. I don’t remember if Mac’s age is clearly stated, but given that he has 20 years of service in the Navy, and a bit of experience as a trucker, I would say that he is between 40 and 50; plus there are some hints on Mac having no more the age to “play” with Ian as much and as soon as Ian would like.
Ian is not an helpless man, he is very clever, but not in a geek out of real world way; he is aware of the dangers around him, but probably since what he is searching, and protecting, is some ancient artefact whose only benefit will be to give credit to his research, or to the man who will steal it from him, I didn’t feel as him or Mac were really in danger, at least not life-danger. True, Ian is running away from an ex-girlfriend who made a deal with another college professor without scruples, but I think the worst they can do is to blow him in the head and running away themselves with Ian’s bounty. The diatribe among them is more like something that could happen in a tea room, rather than in a battle field, and Mac, and Mac’s friends, with their professional training, are like elephants in a crystal shop, way much too experienced to play with Ian’s and his colleagues; and when they decide to play anyway, there is no much game at all.
Probably the most interesting thing is Ian’s character, that has some hidden layers, layers that will not be all unveiled in the end (this is only the first book in a series): bisexual man, and without any issue about it, who, at moment is shy and behaves like a “virgin” (even if he is not virgin at all), and soon after is bossy and temperamental; Ian is not a simple man, and I think that Mac has only seen a little bit of this man, but being Mac a curious man, he is very interested in making Ian his personal mission, a mission that will lead him to uncover all those hidden layers.
http://www.mlrbooks.com/ShowBook.php?book=TOMCAT01
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Amazon Kindle: Tomcat Line1: The Hitch-Hiker
The Lost Temple (The Tomcat Line 2) by Stevie Woods
Probably the most interesting thing of this series is the mix of adventures on Indiana Jones style and the home-made apple pie feelings of the trips by truck. Plus there is a nice mismatch on the chosen role play: Ian, the wanna-be Indiana Jones, is more a next door simple guy, glasses and nerd style shirt included; Mac, the truck driver, is a former Army officer with a Bruce Willis hero type attitude.
But these two different men met and fell in love, and so now they have to find a way to reconcile their lives. At the end of the first book everything seemed easy, they are living in the same state if not in the same city, and Mac is his own boss and so he can free time to go and visit Ian. But an easy plan is not easy to respect and so now Ian and Mac realized that actually they have not so much time to stay together and that when they are, they spend more time in regretting the time they lost than enjoying what they have.
There is also an element of age difference: Mac is, more or less, arrived, or at least in the descendent phase of his career, he is arrived in a moment when career is not exactly first in mind; Ian instead has just started his academic career, he has to invest a lot in it, above all on a time consuming factor. Mac understands that, if he asks now to Ian to renounce to it, they have too many years in front of them when Ian will regret to have done so.
I think the author wanted to tell both side of the story, and so basically this time we have both type of adventure: the “on the road” type, told from Mac’s point of view, and the “on the field” one, the archeological mission to discover the Lost Temple in Belize. This is not a long book, more or less 100 pages, and so both adventures are outlined but nor dug in details and the resolutions is pretty quick: in a way, I felt like it was more important to define the balance between Ian and Mac to build a steady relationship, than to read about these adventures.
http://www.mlrbooks.com/ShowBook.php?book=TOMCAT02
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Amazon Kindle: The Lost Temple (The Tomcat Lines Series)
Amazon: The Tomcat Line #1 (print book)
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