cover image There Is a Road

There Is a Road

Terry Kettig. Vantage Press, $11.95 trade paper (190p) ISBN 978-0-533-16371-7

Johnny Lawless is a smuggler in the Florida Keys. He brings health care supplies and food to Cuba and smuggles back boxes of cigars. While he exhibits basic humanitarian concern, Johnny refuses to get involved in politics. During a smuggling run, Johnny's long-lost son, Monty, arrives in Florida and starts looking for his father. Almost as soon as father and son meet and begin to get to know one other, another figure from Johnny's past appears: Alonso, a Cuban drug dealer. Alonso begs Johnny to help him smuggle out of Cuba a family that has run afoul of the country's government. Johnny reluctantly agrees, but dies while trying to rescue the family. This purported crime thriller rambles. The pacing is poor, the philosophical pretensions (Johnny has a parrot named Kierkegaard) are thin, and some aspects of the plot are ludicrous (Johnny's friend, Knuckles, frequently shoots police officers for no reason and is never caught). Readers will likely be frustrated.