From a Buick 8

The state police of Troop D in rural Pennsylvania have kept a secret in Shed B out back of the barracks ever since 1979,when Troopers Ennis Rafferty and Curtis Wilcox answered a call from a gas station just down the road and came back with an abandoned Buick Roadmaster. Curt Wilcox knew old carsand he knew immediately that this one was…wrongjust wrong. A few hours laterwhen Rafferty vanishedWilcox and his fellow troopers knew the car was worse than dangerous — and that it would be better if John Q. Public never found out about it. Curt’s avid curiosity taking the leadthey investigated as best they couldas much as they dared. Over the years the troop absorbed the mystery as part of the background to their workthe Buick 8 sitting out there like a still life painting that breathes — inhaling a little bit of this worldexhaling a little bit of whatever world it came from. In the fall of 2001a few months after Curt Wilcox is killed in a gruesome auto accidenthis 18-year-old boy Ned starts coming by the barracksmowing the lawnwashing windowsshoveling snow. Sandy DearbornSergeant Commandingknows it’s the boy’s way of holding onto his fatherand Ned is allowed to become part of the Troop D family. One day he looks in the window of Shed B and discovers the family secret. Like his fatherNed wants answersand the secret begins to stirnot only in the minds and hearts of the veteran troopers who surround himbut in Shed B as well…. From a Buick 8 is a novel about our fascination with deadly thingsabout our insistence on answers when there are noneabout terror and courage in the face of the unknowable.