By Clyde Noel
Town Crier Correspondent
Book Review
The opening sentence of “Moonshine Express” is “Me and Katie stole a train the summer we both turned thirteen.”
That reminded me of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” with its use of young adult language, but the Southern location soon takes you into another era.
“Moonshine Express,” published in April by Four Seasons Publishers, is the first novel by Los Altos resident Rod Norville.
Norville is scheduled to talk about the book at 7:30 p.m., July 24, at the Los Altos main library, 13 S. San Antonio Road.
The book is a family adventure set in the South, with moonshine characters and train stealing.
As the book opens, 13-year-old Rob McKinley’s world is falling apart.
His mother has died and his father is drinking heavily. Rob, with the support of his friend Katie, is barely coping.
They live on the edge of a north Florida swamp sprinkled with half-breed Seminole Indian moonshine runners. Rob and Katie are stunned when they stumble across respected community citizens behind a local moonshine distribution ring.
Luke, the murderous half-breed supplier, learns of their discovery; and Rob and Katie have to flee across the deadly swamp.
They finally make their way to an isolated switching yard in search of an engineer friend of Rob’s who taught him about trains.
Suddenly, they realize Luke has tracked them down and is coming in for the kill. Their only escape is to steal a train.
The book is a clean-cut adventure satisfactory for young readers, but the written dialogue is confusing.
It switches between the adult language of the South and the colloquial dialogue of Rob and Katie. At other times, it’s written in essay style.
As the conclusion, Rob’s father’s drinking has stopped and he is the new plant manager at the Dr. Pepper plant; Katie is in high school in Atlanta and will go on to Smith College; Luke is in jail; and Rob is in the military.
“Moonlight Express” is a story Norville kept in his mind since he was a California teen attached to a B-47 bomber crew stationed in the Deep South.
Norville retired from top management with different companies in Silicon Valley.
Throughout his career he wrote for technical publications and magazines.
He has written the screenplay for “Moonshine Express” and finished a second novel, “The Last Man in Time.”
As a Californian teen-age invader of the Deep South, Norville recognized the underlying integrity, honesty and courage of Southerners.
It is those qualities he tries to highlight in his book, especially through his protagonist, Rob McKinley.
The 183-page book, retailing for $11.95, is available through Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble (bn.com) and Borders (Borders.com).
