The FBI's Highway Serial Killings Initiative keeps track of murders on the highway, and over 850 have been linked to truck drivers. This is a novel that is written in the voice of serial killer Stephen, a truck driver who kills in many states on the road. He is an independent truck driver and works when he wants. He lives, works, and kills out of his truck. The goal is fifty teeth that he etches a name, a fact about the person, and a date on, which reside inside a red velvet roll with fifty pockets.
Stephen didn't start off killing people. The taking of a tooth was the first goal. He wasn't entirely successful in removing a tooth from a person until he broke into a dentist's office and forced him to show him how to do it. Stephen took the instruments and some Novocain and left the dentist alive. Soon, he discovered that it was easier to remove the tooth when the person is dead and can't fight back. He added to his kit a piano wire and Dr. Pepper loaded with a drug to knock the person out. Stephen prefers women because they take better care of their teeth. That's not to say that he doesn't kill men. He does to those who deserve it.
Each chapter is a story of a tooth, but not the story of every tooth. There are too many. Not everyone dies, and some of the victims have a plan in place to kill him and believe he is the one in the trap. He only takes those no one will miss and those that deserve to die. Stephen has a bit of an epiphany on the road and changes his rules somewhat. Eventually, a woman known as The Poet, for her reading of poetry of being on the road on a CB station, begins to offer news of a killer on the highway and missing women. She asks for tips, and FBI agent Mara Holt begins to follow her on air and hunt for this killer who takes a tooth from each victim.
I haven't read any books about a trucker serial killer, so, for me, this novel is unique. This is the second horror story from Olsen. He wrote another one that comes before this one, but it in no way hinders you or loses you by reading this book first. You will want to read the other book once you finish this one. This book was a spectacular read and one I can't recommend enough. It keeps you captivated, and sometimes crossing your fingers that he won't kill this victim and rooting for him to not get caught and kill those that truly deserve it. Every page you turn, you have no idea what will come next. Each chapter is a thrill ride that will keep you guessing until the end of the book.
Quotes
He taught me the sound a belt makes when it whistles through the air at midnight. He also taught me something else without meaning it. Pain has a rhythm. A cadence. A music.
Stephen Van Olsen (Ghost Hauler: Fifty Teeth, p 11)
Coincidence is a language for people who aren't paying attention.
Stephen Van Olsen (Ghost Hauler: Fifty Teeth, p 33)
Memory was crueler than accuracy.
Stephen Van Olsen (Ghost Hauler: Fifty Teeth, p, 74)
The he said it. Matter-of-fact with a cracked little melody under it. Kids who talked like that had already survived things adults didn't want to imagine.
Stephen Van Olsen (Ghost Hauler: Fifty Teeth, p, 76)
The sky keeps changing colors. Don't want to miss the moment it becomes itself.
Stephen Van Olsen (Ghost Hauler: Fifty Teeth, p, 81)
Kids don't savor. Kids devour.
Stephen Van Olsen (Ghost Hauler: Fifty Teeth, p, 88)
Her voice carried road dust, cheap coffee, too many nights without sleep.
Stephen Van Olsen (Ghost Hauler: Fifty Teeth, p, 110)
"Headed where?" I asked. She hesitated. "West. Far enough." A pause. "Not back." Back was a person not a place. Back was a man with a belt. Back was a house with alcohol and backhands. A house that finally felt apart.
Stephen Van Olsen (Ghost Hauler: Fifty Teeth, p, 111)
I've been tired longer than you've been breathing.
Stephen Van Olsen (Ghost Hauler: Fifty Teeth, p, 113)
The kind of silence where everyone was trying to figure out whether they could breathe.
Stephen Van Olsen (Ghost Hauler: Fifty Teeth, p, 116)
I knew their type. California bred them. Feral, bright, desperate kids raised under sodium lamps behind strip malls, learning to navigate men the way other girls learned algebra. They were used to choosing their predators. They believed they had.
Stephen Van Olsen (Ghost Hauler: Fifty Teeth, p, 135)
Predators recognize predators not by teeth or speed, but by silence. The kind of silence that doesn't come from having nothing to say.
Stephen Van Olsen (Ghost Hauler: Fifty Teeth, p, 139)
Fear made people waste their last seconds on impossible math.
Stephen Van Olsen (Ghost Hauler: Fifty Teeth, p, 202)
Everything's creepy if you look at it long enough.
Stephen Van Olsen (Ghost Hauler: Fifty Teeth, p, 211)
It still amazes me how friendly and polite people in the South are. Makes it so much easier for hunters, and the others, the really bad ones.
Stephen Van Olsen (Ghost Hauler: Fifty Teeth, p, 257)
Link to ThriftBooks: https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/ghost-hauler-fifty-teeth-stephen-van-olsen/59326021/?resultid=18aa50ad-01f3-43cf-b292-ca0dc5573875#edition=75905312&idiq=89484287
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