Death Hitches a Ride

I got around to reading this Ace Double by Martin L. Weiss that I bought a few weeks ago. (You can see the cover here.) It's the story of Al Hopkins, an undercover narcotics agent on his way to a new assignment when he unwisely picks up a couple of hitchhikers. They turn out to be psychopathic killers who force him to accompany them on a deadly cross-country joy ride. Or are they more than that . . .?

There are some genuinely creepy moments in this book and a plot twist or two that I didn't see coming, but ultimately it's undone by the fact that the protagonist continually does dumb things just to keep the plot going. I lost track of how many times I wanted to yell at him. Weiss's writing is functional at best and downright awkward in many places. For a while I toyed with the idea that Weiss might be a previously unknown pseudonym for Lionel White -- the style and the plot reminded me a little of White's work -- but in the end I decided that it was unlikely. White was a better plotter than this. So what we have here is a pretty good cover but a mediocre novel, and not a very good example of the Ace Double mystery line at its best.