Thanks for the Memories, Mr Preside

Penzler Pick, April 2002: The second novel by Baine Kerr is, like his first, Harmful Intent, a densely plotted thriller with the threads of the story meandering here and there, the author apparently in no hurry to get to the crux of his story. It is a device that, in the hands of a less talented writer, might frustrate the reader, but here it is a pleasure to go along for the ride during which a richly textured story infolds. It begins on December 25, 1993, in Laramie, Wyoming. June Mooney, the only female engineer at the train yard, has signed up for duty on Christmas Day because her daughter is with June's ex. Dale Stillwell, a loner, has also signed up for duty. In the middle of a raging blizzard, June is in the trailing cab of a locomotive, steering it through the yard while Dale hangs off the lead engine checking switches and giving the go ahead. As June's engine starts down a line to a spur, an outbound coal train stands in the cutoff. Dale is straining to see through the snow and, as he glimpses the cowcatchers of the coal train close in with 6 inches to spare, he clambers up the rungs of his engine, misses one, loses his hold, and slips between the trains. He is rolled and then dropped with two collapsed lungs, 11 broken bones, and a bolt jammed into his skull. June never saw a thing. This story is told by Elliott Stone, the court-appointed conservator for Dale Stillwell in the matter of Stillwell vs. The Western Pacific Railroa