The Suicide Motor Club

Suicide Motor Club is gut-wrenchingly gritty from ignition. A mean ride of monsters and a mad mommy. Replete with Buehlman's characteristic nightmare violence and wonderfully sick sense of humor, test your faith with these road warrior vamps that are anything but charming.

4.5/5 stars!

Vampires and American muscle cars. It's like this book was tailored to me personally. And on top of that, it ROCKED!

A family is on a road trip on an American highway one night, with their young son in the back seat. A car with no lights on pulls up next to them, grabs the arm of the boy, (he had his arm out the window), and poof, the boy is gone. Next thing you know, the car is crashed on the side of the road, with both mom and dad badly injured. Where did the boy go? Who took him? Will he ever see his father and mother again? You'll have to read this to find out.

There's no sparkling here and there's no romance, (well, maybe a little, but it's a different type of romance.) Instead, these vamps traveled in a pack during the late 60's. For me, the time period was a perfect, refreshing setting because: 1. the cars were all American,(this was a time before the invasion of imported cars), 2. I'm an American car gal AND I love muscle cars and 3. there were no cell phones or other technologies distracting me from the story.

At this point in my horror-reading life, I'm vampired out. It takes a special book to get me excited about them, and this one was it. I loved the return of vampires with hypnotizing skills, (remember when Dracula did that hypnotizing thing?), ones that can make you do his/her bidding and then forget you ever saw them. I enjoyed the fact that these vampires had other special skills which I'll leave you to discover on your own, (but trust me the skills were COOL). I loved that these monsters were just that: MONSTERS in capital letters. Lastly, I also loved the fact that the protagonist was strong and female, never exactly sure of her strength but pressing on just the same. Jude was one to root for and root I did.

Now I'm sad that I only have one Christopher Buehlman book left to read. If you're out there, sir, I hope you're working on something new!

If you haven't read any of Mr. Buehlman's work as of yet, you should rectify that-and quickly! I doubt you'd be disappointed with any of them, but I highly recommend The Suicide Motor Club! It might just restore your faith in vampire horror stories and give you a new author to read!

*I obtained my copy through my awesome public library because I'm usually broke. Libraries RULE*

Yikes maybe I should start with his first novel, this one badly needs an editor.I could have cut and pasted this into a lean,mean 200 page classic
(I am Legend sized) and it would have had punch and wouldn't meander into bloated character studies.
Beware suspicious 5 star reviews for little known authors. HOWEVER there were glimmers of genius here and I'm going to read his first book now!

On highways across America, a tribe of people called (The True Knot) The Suicide Motor Club travel in search of sustenance. They look (harmless) like gearheads—mostly (old) dead, lots of (polyester) leather, and married to their (RVs) GTOs.

If it isn't obvious from the above, I'm pretty sure Christopher Buehlman lifted the most interesting idea from Stephen King's Doctor Sleep (road warrior vampires on Route 66!) and repurposed it for his horror smash-fest, The Suicide Motor Club. I've got no quibble with that - hell, someone deserved to get something out of the flaming wreck that was the sequel to The Shining - only with the fact that even diesel seems weak sauce after Buehlman's excellent last novel, The Lesser Dead.

Two years ago, Judith Lamb was just another woman on a road trip with her husband and son, until two cars came out of the night and smashed everything she loved. But what haunts her is what she saw that no one believes: that the drivers had shining eyes...and teeth. On the verge of taking orders, she's contacted by an ex-priest who offers her the one thing she never thought she'd get...revenge.

I've been a fan of Buehlman's since I read his The Necromancer's House back in 2014, and what I've enjoyed most is his range and originality. Seeing him go back to vampires after The Lesser Dead feels like a commercial move rather than an artistic one. (No judgment - everybody has to eat, and most of us have mortgages.) It's just unfortunate that this book immediately follows his own infinitely better vampire novel.

Aside from the inevitable and unfortunate contrast, there's lots to enjoy here: deftly drawn characters (some of which have four wheels), emotional conflict, gory death. Structurally the book skips around so that you spend as much or more time with the villains of the piece and their victims than with the heroes, which is fine as villains are generally more interesting anyway.

While I've clearly got a bias toward his last previous work, The Suicide Motor Club is a solid horror novel, and a perfect gift for any horror fan who also happens to love muscle cars. Here's hoping, however, that the hint of a sequel I saw in the ending was a figment of my own tortured imagination and that Buehlman moves on from vampires to new territory with his next work.

I'll read anything by Buehlman. The guy has serious chops. This book is just badass

Loved this novel.

I really hope there is going to be a sequel. I’ve read almost all of Christopher Buehlman’s novels and they are all great reads. Suicide Motor Club is entertaining and had very interesting complex characters.

Judith was a strong protagonist. She loses her 5 year old son and husband in the beginning of the novel to this vampire gang. She was supposed to die but she remembers them and she wants revenge.

Luther Nixon is the leader of the vampire gang and is an interesting antagonist. Even though you do not like him and everything he does, I still enjoyed reading his backstory.

The character that I enjoyed the most and really wish there was more on was Clayton. I really wanted to read more about him. What is his backstory? How did he become a vampire? The novel really ramped up when we meet Clayton. He’s mysterious and has different views than the other vampires.

Overall, I really enjoyed this novel. The only negative for me is that I wish there was more. In the last chapter, Judith learns new information that really changes a lot of things for her. I was really disappointed that it ended like that, unless of course the author intends to write a sequel.

Always a great read.

Great read. It will keep you up at night. You'll wanna keep reading because it's so good, and to avoid any bad dreams it might cause.

Another great horror read from Christopher Beuhlman!

It is the late '70s and a group of vampires are terrorizing the Mid-West and Route 66, driving muscle cars.
A group called the Bereaved are out to stop what they call the Suicide Motor Club. A woman's husband and
child are taken by the club, and she joins the Bereaved to get revenge.

Great fast paced read with plenty of thrills and twists. I really enjoyed this book and can't wait for Beuhlman's
next one!