Rigby's Roads
Michael Charles Messineo
(Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
2003 PublishAmerica
ISBN: 1413701809

A tale of love, murder & restoration of life.

Mild-mannered think-tank wizard Jack Rigby is at the nadir of his life. He has nothing left to live for -- a couple of years ago his wife was killed in a car crash, his son is in Okinawa in the Marines, & his work is just not grabbing him anymore.

So there he is, parked on a quiet country lane, contemplating suicide. Then he hears gunshots & glimpses at the top of the embankment where the highway runs, a cop falling down. Frozen with fear, Jack sits there ... until someone comes crashing into his car, covered with blood. What's a man to do?

If you're anything like Jack Rigby, you're going to stuff the fellow into the back seat & quietly head home, clean the guy up & help him recover. Except ...“Wheels” has something to say about life ... things which make Jack very uncomfortable ... because they make so much sense. Soon Wheels has Jack making a crazy list of the 50 things he wants to have done before he cashes out.

As the saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished & a few days later, as Jack is groaning about how his newspaper has again been stolen off his grass out front on which all the neighborhood dogs seem to make their deposits, & he's looking over his list, & thinking about Bonnie, the quiet woman in the work station next to his ... life comes roaring up his drive in the form of a gang of Harley Davidson motorcyclists. Wheels has come to pay Jack back, with an exquisite 1200 Sportster Custom & the diminutive Yogi, whiz kid extraordinaire.

Soon Jack is so busy he doesn't have time to be sad. He gets a new project at work & is partnered with Bonnie. Yogi is coaching him to get his motorcycle license ... when he isn't out on the Web doing all sorts of strange & bewildering things with his high-powered computers & satellite dishes.

Then Wheels takes him out for his first spin ... & life will never be the same for Jack. He even invites Bonnie out for a run. & life if looking good.

Then ... his house is burglarized ... a barbecue with his neighbor turns ugly ... the police come a-knocking & then the FBI ... Yogi is kidnapped -- the ransom is a bag Wheels had when Jack rescued him & the exchange will be made at the great roundup in Sturgis, South Dakota.

Rigby's Roads is a quest for personal worth, with thrills & spills on every page, humor & evil around every corner, with streetwise philosophies salted throughout -- Jack is on the adventure of his life!

Michael Charles Messineo has a fine tale to tell, with off-the-cuff homilies from the unlikeliest of people, amusing turns of phrases, a lot of HOG lore & legends, & hair-raising adventures. The reason it didn't ring all my bells was its editing -- it left much to be desired.
(04/18/04)

Rebecca