An excellent, grippingly great read

I read this book more than 20 years ago, when it first came out and it remains without doubt in my favourite top 10 of all books I've ever read. And I read a huge amount when I could see. And now I re-read a vast amount, via audible. ;)

I remember this book terrifying me.
The idea of being trapped in the ground with no light except one in an old buried bus..surviving on cereal, a hole in the floor and water. just the thought of it made me quake the first time round. Add into that being young children, it would be horrible. The terror and the way the children and Walter attempted to survive made it such a good book.
That's almost all I'll give away.

The idea of a religious zealot and followers imprisoning children, well we've seen a similar event several times in my lifetime. Think Jamestown and "drinking the kool-aid" which snuffed out 900 lives. Or Waco. It is an iteration of the same thing--this book is about an insane "prophet" who really was a terrible, narcissistic loony toon, imprisoning 11 kids and their heroic bus driver for 49 days. Walter the character, the ongoing story he told the kids about a turkey vulture named Jacksonville and his sidekick vs The Barbeque Tongs, everything about him and his care for the kids, I loved the character. I loved his story within a story.

Molly Cates is the main character, a plucky crime reporter who made her appearance in an earlier book called "The Red Scream". She's great. She's smart, makes a great protagonist, the story is mostly told from her perspective. Somehow the FBI and Hostage negotiation team let her be involved because she's interviewed the bad guy, the truly evil Mordicai and his band of followers. Such evil in the name of God.

Mordecai is the religious zealot. He believes the Rapture is coming and he's going to be the vehicle to the end of the world. The narrator does an awesome job of bringing a religious zealot's fire-and-brimstone voice to life, I really enjoyed this narrator. Hopefully she has a library here. She did a great job on the different voices in the book.

It's a well written story, just close your eyes and imagine being 10, and in a buried school bus with other kids and a single adult, the bus driver. Imagine that. At times I remember when I read the paperback having a visceral, physical reaction to the subject matter. Gasping with the poor asthmatic boy's ragged breathing. The book kept me reading it in probably 2-3 days in print, and listened continuously from the time I started last night till I finished it tonight. It's also one of the few books that caused me to burst into tears, both then, and now. Both in sadness and in relief.

I highly, higlhy recommend it.

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