"If you do break down, don't leave your car. The sun will kill you in two hours." A short, pulp fiction fury of sand, steel, scorching sun and sadism, it's no surprise Fear Is the Rider is a novel borne of a 1981 television script. Prolific Australian author, director and screenwriter Kenneth Cook (Wake in Fright) died in 1987, and his daughter recently discovered he had turned the script into a novel. The result is a barnburner of a horror ride through the vast and merciless Australian outback.
Driving from Sydney to Adelaide, a young man takes a detour down the Obiri Track, a path so hazardous travelers are urged to check in at the police station before departing. But the lure of catching up with a woman headed that direction outweighs the posted warning.
When Shaw does find her, Katie is running for her life, and thus begins a frantic showdown with an ax-wielding killer who now sits behind the wheel of her Land Cruiser, a huge, invulnerable metal machine. Trapped in the desert with a nameless, faceless and seemingly motiveless bogeyman, the duo will need every resource to survive.
With only the desert elements and his imagination as tools, Cook crafts an adrenaline-riddled, Tarantino-esque ride through hell that never eases up. Some of the dialogue has a dated B-movie quality, but it feels fitting for the overall tone and doesn't distract from the relentless terror of a madman pursuing innocent travelers in a barren deathtrap. --Lauren O'Brien of Malcolm Avenue Review