Description
Set on the freight trains of 1980s America, Lynden Hoover learns about this life from his mentor The Duke, one of the last remaining Knights of the Road, but everything changes when The Duke’s enemy Short Arm won’t back down and two friends are murdered.
This is a story of America! Lynden Hoover, a young man on the brink of a new beginning, cannot embrace it without confronting the traumas of his past. Help comes from The Duke, an old loner who calls America’s landscape his home. He clings to an honor code, but in fleeing from Short Arm, his merciless enemy, his code is being tested. At the end of the 20th century, few Knights of the Road still cling to their vanishing lifestyle. The Duke mentors Lynden, enlisting old traveling friends to keep himself and his apprentice just ahead of Short Arm’s relentless pursuit. When two of those friends are murdered, the stakes become life or death. Bonds are formed, secrets exposed, sacrifices made, trusts betrayed – all against a breathtaking American landscape of promise and peril. Three unforgettable characters, hurtling toward a spellbinding climax where pasts and futures collide, and lives hang in the balance. With The Last Professional, Davis has done for American railroads what Kerouac did for American highways, and Steinbeck did for American nomads.
“Davis presents readers with an adventure that also works well as a tribute to the past, effectively using the perspective of a young character to capture what feels like the last glimpse of a disappearing culture.” — Kirkus Reviews
About the Author
Ed Davis began his writing career over forty years ago, pausing in boxcars, under street lamps, and in hobo jungles to capture the beats and rhythms of the road as he caught freight trains and vagabonded around the Pacific Northwest and Canada. The Last Professional began in a boxcar. His short stories have appeared in numerous literary journals.
