Harriet Klausner's Review Archive
Will Scott is just passing through when he notices the Ferris wheel lights in the distance. Teenager Brittany Wilson gives him a ride to the carnival where he meets Leigh. They enjoy the events and soon go dancing together. Not long afterward Will obtains a temporary job as a mechanic. Though she wants to believe otherwise as she is falling in love with the mysterious stranger, she wonders if he could be dangerous as the main suspect in a potential tragedy. He finds himself falling for the local law enforcement official, but knows his past makes him the worst candidate for anything but passing through.
BACK ROADS is an interesting look at a rural Midwest town where everyone intimately knows each other so the slightest change in routine leads to concerns about the person. Leigh is an intriguing individual struggling with the feeling that there is more to life than the rut she feels she lives in. Will is enigmatic, telling little about himself until the reader gets deep into the plot. The story line initially moves like a Ferris wheel as Susan Crandall sets the background for an exciting police procedural romantic suspense in which the heroine speculates whether her beloved is a dangerous felon capable of atrocities.