THE RED HIGHWAY by Robert E. Dunn_Tour and Review

The Red Highway, Synopsis

Necro Publications/Bedlam Press
PAGES: 282
ISBN: 978-1-939065-82-7 Trade Paperback (List: $12.95)
Distribution: Trade Paperback: Amazon, LSI and CreateSpace eBook: Kindle,Smashwords, Baker & Taylor, Nook, LSI, Apple, Kobo, Sony and others

In 1992, as Los Angeles begins to simmer in the heat of racial injustices, one dark man appears everywhere, spreading his message of race war. At the same time, PaulSouther, a homeless drunk, joins a strange group of outsiders. Some black and some white, they all carry the weight of broken lives and lost faith. They are all drawn to LA, for the arrival of a child, impossibly carried by Mary Prince, a sterile porn star.

Through back roads and freeways everyone is pulled into LA and Mary's side just as the baby is born. None of them have any idea that the city is a ticking bomb of anger. As riots explode, the mysterious man reveals himself to be an ancient, dark spirit using the rage of the people to stoke his own, literal, fires. He demands Mary’s child as sacrifice to keep the city, and perhaps the nation from burning. It falls to Paul, a faithless man, and a drunk with blood on his own hands, to make the impossible choice between the child and the city, and to save the people he has come to care about.

Biography, Robert E. Dunn

Robert E. Dunn was born an army brat and grew up in the Missouri Ozarks. He wrote his first book at age eleven, stealing, or novelizing, as he called it at the time, the storyline of a Jack Kirby comic book.

His college course of study, philosophy, religion, theatre, and film/TV communications, left him qualified only to be a televangelist. When that didn’t work out, he turned to them mostly, honest work of video production. Over several years he produced everything from documentaries, to training films and his favorite, travelogues. Still always writing for the joy of it he returned to writing horror and fantasy fiction for publication after the turn of the century. It seemed like a good time for change even if the changes were not always his choice.

He lives in Kansas City with three daughters, a young grandson, and an old dog. He tweets sometimes as @WritingDead but makes no promises how interesting those little posts will be.

Praise for The Red Highway

“The Red Highway is not one of the best books that I’ve read so far this year, or that I’ve read in a long time…it’s one of the best books that I’ve ever read!  It was an incredible read, one that has so many layers that I was completely enthralled with the story.” –2 Book Lovers Reviews

"A thoroughly gripping read. Dunn is a writer with guts and the chops to grab his readers by the eyeballs and dare them to look away." –Hunter Shea, Author of Tortures of the Damned 

Purchase Links

Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/The-Red-Highway-Robert-Dunn-ebook/dp/B0158WMEOE

Barnes & Noble

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-red-highway-robert-e-dunn/1122623132

Necro Publications

http://necropublications.myshopify.com/collections/the-red-highway-by-robert-e-dunn/products/the-red-highway-by-robert-e-dunn

Giveaway!!!

Enter for your chance to win either a copy of The Red Highway, Behind the Darkness, or a print of the beautiful cover artwork from The Red Highway done by Erik Wilson! You can do multiple things each day to gain more entries! Just click the rafflecopter link. Forward any questions to Erin Al-Mehairi, publicist, at hookofabook@hotmail.com.

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/share-code/MjMxYWEzMGI1ZDE2MGYyYTgzYjk4NzVhYzhmMTdmOjI3/?

"The Red Highway is a bold exploration of the dark edges of American culture and the near racial cataclysm we faced in LA in the early 90s. Rife with deeply flawed characters, it's also a story of second chances. A paranormal figure is drawing a band of hearty, wounded souls to Los Angeles, all in search of a former porn star, now in a mental home, who is carrying a baby that could be the key to resolution or destruction. A thoroughly gripping read. Dunn is a writer with guts and the chops to grab his readers by the eyeballs and dare them to look away."

Review: THE RED HIGHWAY by Robert E. Dunn

THE RED HIGHWAY, a literary apocalyptic tale, is a novel one doesn't speed through. Uncountable times I paused to savor, reread, and ponder, the beauty of a phrase, the deeper meaning. Within a story of urban apocalypse, author Robert E. Dunn presents unforgettable characters. Even the backdrop individuals (for example, a "fat lady" liquor store clerk Paul encounters in Kansas City, and an L.A. store owner of strong integrity and will who intervenes to protect Mary from the Big Man) bring human philosophy and hope and idealism in a cynical, jaded, downtrodden, hopeless society.

We are presented with a protagonist-narrator who is one of the most self-analytical I've encountered. Maybe it's his nature; maybe it's the Ph.D. No matter the cause, Paul Souther is a man so self-aware he is conscious of failing even as he fails, and aware of the reasons why.

THE RED HIGHWAY presents a rationale for instantaneous urban rage, the type which kills at random, loots, burns, destroys neighborhoods and cities. Some will not believe this; but the author capably vilifies his premise. And why not? Is sheer human insanity a better explanation for the Rodney King beating [precursor to the events here], the L.A. race riots, Miami's Liberty City and Oldtown, Chicago's violent Summer of '68? 

Unfailingly there will be comparisons to that other apocalyptic novel, the one starring antagonist-villain the Dark Man, Randall Flagg. Let the comparisons be created. THE RED HIGHWAY stands securely on its own, and is not secondary to any.