Fastback Beach

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

Fastback Beach begins and ends on a stretch of beach where teens go to
drag race. The first time readers encounter 16-year-old Miles Derkach
there, he is a passenger in a Mustang convertible that has been stolen
by Miles’s childhood friend, Larry “the Lark” Lowisky, and the
older Spider, who fences the car parts Larry steals. When Miles is
rendered unconscious in an accident, the other two, both on probation,
desert him, and Miles is arrested. After pleading guilty, Miles, who
does not “rat out” the real car thieves, is sentenced to 90 days’
probation plus 100 hours of community service at a senior citizens’
organization. The sentence’s latter provision brings Miles into a
growing friendship with Ned Barnier, a senior who is recovering from a
stroke and who needs help in preparing his 1937 Ford coupe hot rod for a
“Show and Shine” event. Unfortunately, Miles accidentally tells
Larry about the coupe, and, when it is stolen, Miles “knows” who
took it and where it likely is. Back at Fastback Beach, Miles this time
turns Larry and Spider over to the police.

Knowledgeable car buffs will enjoy Matheson’s auto-laced language,
which includes sentences like “The engine was super charged, fuel
injected, with a Crower roller cam,” while the
auto-terminology-challenged will simply skip these parts and read for
plot. Minor subplots in this hi-lo title include Miles’s mechanically
inclined romantic interest, Mackenzie “Kenny” Morash, and an
unfolding explanation of how Miles came to be living in a single-parent
home. Recommended.