Amazon Category:  Horror Publisher: iUniverse ISBN-10:  0595205542 Type: Fiction Pages: 235 Copyright: Nov 1 2001 Dirty Boots is a fast-paced and perverted story about the living and the dead and all that is in between "In the mood for a little hopelessness, confusion and despair?  I have got just the book for you: Dirty Boots by Mike E. Purfield." - Cemetary Dance. Page Shelly is eighteen, top of her class at Owel High School, and popular. You would think she’d have her whole life ahead of her, but she doesn’t. She is dying from a terminal disease. Hating how fake her life and environment is, Page sets out to live her remaining days in Florida, that is, until she meets Sam. Sam Young is a sixteen-year-old white trash boy without a past. He can’t read, people have given up on him, his skin and features change against his will, oh, and he moves things in his sleep with his mind. Page and Sam travel across the evil heartland of America to Sedona, Arizona. Together, the two teen-agers find meaning in their lives while trying to stay alive. $14.95 Signed Editions available at Shocklines

Savage Night
Dirty Boots, by Mike E. Purfield(Writer's Club Press, 2001)
Rating: †††1/2 Daggers of Death

Part road story, part supernatural chiller, part serial killer tale, part teenage angst story, "Dirty Boots," is an ambitious novel that attempts to touch readers in many different ways and for the most part succeeds. Sam has a gift that he can't control. Page has a curse that will most likely end her life way too soon. Add to this a really sick serial killer, a smart mouthed psychic, and a few other weird characters and you have a good mix that came out as one very interesting story. Only occasionally did the writer show his inexperience by telling me the story rather than showing it to me. Overall, "Dirty Boots," was fun to read. Some of the exchanges of dialogue between Sam and Page are priceless.

The most important thing about "Dirty Boots," was when I was getting near the end. I realized I didn't really want this story to stop. I had gotten attached to Sam and Page and the journey they were living through. They were like old friends that I was sad to see go. If I was scoring this book on a scale of 1 to 10 I would have scored it a 7. Mike Purfield made the main characters come alive. For me, that's the most important thing a writer has to do. Mike Purfield has a real talent for having his characters react the way real people do. I'm looking forward to reading more books by him.

- Bob L. Morgan, Jr.

Eternal Night
Page has no future – she is dying, although none of her school friends know it and Page intends it to stay that way.

Sam has no past. Abandoned as a baby he has been moved from foster home to foster home. No family seems capable of dealing with his "health problems".

When fate throws them together they decide to travel to Florida in search of the answers to Sam's past life.

Following them is Dan, a serial killer. He is convinced that Page is his dead sister Trinity and is intent on catching her and making sure, this time, she stays dead.

Dirty Boots has been written in quite an unusual style. Short choppy chapters that jump rapidly from character to character could make the story feel disjointed but in this case it gives the tale a lively, energetic edge with a good feeling of anticipation. There are two main storylines, Sam and Page's hunt for the truth and the actions of Dan the serial killer. Each of these would probably have made a good story on their own, but fused together could possibly have been confusing, but Mike Purfield manages to combine them into one superb novel.

Dirty Boots is Mike Purfield's first novel, and it certainly shows his talent as a writer. He has a refreshing style that makes the book eminently readable. Dirty Boots was another "single-sitting" book. Hopefully there is more to come!


Infinity Plus
Here's a strange one -- and in fact a very good one, despite a blizzard of proofing errors and a lack of copy-editing, as one generally expects from Writers Club/iUniverse books.

Page has AIDS, and decides there's little for her at home in New Jersey; she might as well hit the road. Sam's problems are almost worse: an orphan of unknown antecedents, when asleep he is a focus of poltergeist-like activity, and on waking his physical appearance -- skin colour, hair colour, etc. -- takes a while to settle down. He also has clairvoyant bursts, which are reflected in his drawings; and it is these that tell him he should make his way to Sedona (read Noplace), Arizona. A long string of foster-parents have been unable to tolerate his freakishness; when the latest look set to stand idly by while he's murdered by a lynch mob, he too hits the road -- for Sedona. En route he encounters Page, and she agrees, on the grounds that she has no other fixed destination in mind, to go with him to Sedona.

Dan is a psychopathic serial killer. The first of his countless victims was his elder sister, who came across him eviscerating a pet. But he believes that just because he killed her doesn't mean she's dead; he periodically recognizes her among the people around him, and must kill her all over again. He realizes that Page is the latest "reincarnation" of his sister, and sets himself to murder her and anyone who gets in his way. Of course, he has the minor problem of not knowing where she is, because she's left town for parts unknown; but he kidnaps psychic Perry and forces her to guide him in pursuit.

On arrival in Sedona, Page and Sam introduce themselves to Scott, an artist whose painting of one of the local churches has loomed large in Sam's clairvoyant visions. But Scott proves to be a Satanist who'd like to sacrifice Page...

But that's probably enough of the plot, and I've not even started on Uncle Ivan, who's violently rousted from a years-long coma and is likewise drawn to Sedona, or the bizarre secret within an Arizona mountain that will unlock the door to the mysteries of Sam's existence.

Dirty Boots is, if you like, the weirdest road movie you ever came across, a nightmarish comedy that makes one chuckle with guilt. While reading it I kept thinking of writers whose heyday was in the 1970s or a little earlier -- writers like Richard Brautigan and Richard Fariña, or even the early Thomas Pynchon -- but really Purfield has his own voice, and his own distinctly skewed worldview. Despite the irritations I mentioned at the outset, the fluidity of his prose makes the pages turn quickly, and the entertainment rarely if ever flags. It's much to be hoped that a non-vanity press will pick this book up, edit and proofread it properly, and reissue it in a better edition. But the book's recommended even in its current form.


Review by John Grant.