No Mercy at the Scales
A 1930s Desert Highway Noir

About this book:

The Mojave doesn't forgive mistakes, and it doesn't forget debts. In the blistering summer of 1935, Ben Vance hauls twelve tons of citrus and timber behind a '34 Federal truck, fighting vapor lock, blown tires, and a highway system rigged against the independent man. Every county line is a tollbooth, every weigh station a shakedown, and the inspectors with their brass badges and rigged scales bleed wildcatters dry—twenty dollars at a time, cash in the pocket, no receipts written. Ben paid at Cadiz Summit. But he watched them rig the beam for the next driver, and the next, and the cold rage settling in his chest burns hotter than the desert sun.

Tommy Miller's patched radiator won't hold the grade. The finance company holds the pink slip on Ben's rig. The big freight lines own the legislators, and the law wears a khaki shirt and a sidearm. From the alkali flats to the salt pan standoff, *No Mercy at the Scales* drives deep into the gritty veins of Depression-era noir—where a handshake and a spare hose mean more than a badge, and justice doesn't come from a courtroom. It comes from a man who refuses to let the road break him, mile after brutal mile, all the way to the final inspection.

Twenty-six chapters of white-knuckle tension, mechanical verisimilitude, and moral clarity in a world gone corrupt. For readers who like their noir dust-caked and diesel-soaked, where the hero's only backup is his own two hands and a code the law forgot.