Lynden Hoover is unhappy. He’s a rising star computer programmer placed in a position where he feels he must escape. Bullied by his new boss, Lynden packs a backpack of supplies and disappears the only way he knows how– an empty boxcar on an eastbound train.

The Last Professional by Ed Davis follows Lynden as he escapes his life as a computer programmer and goes in search of The Tramp, who kidnapped and abused him on the rails as a child. Lynden meets The Duke, who shows him the ropes of riding in boxcars across the country, though The Duke has his own problems to deal with. A former friend and fellow hobo named Short Arm is after The Duke. Together, Lynden and The Duke traverse the rails to try and stay one step ahead of Short Arm.

Davis takes the reader into the gritty, unpredictable world of hobos, hiding in boxcars and spending nights in jungles, where they could get a bite to eat and maybe a shave. As the old days die away, these hobos must adjust to a world of bulls protecting train yards and fewer and fewer empty boxcars. Professionals, or Profesh, as they call themselves, are a dying breed, and The Duke and a few of his friends are the last of their kind.

Davis masterfully creates a world of train hobos, filling the book with small details without going overboard. These details bring the reader closer to the story and can leave the reader dreaming about riding the rails. With as many twists as the railroads that crisscross the nation, The Last Professional will keep you reading page after page until the very end. I would recommend this riveting novel to anyone who enjoys a good travel and survival story, history buffs, and readers who want to be whisked away to a world frequently romanticized in American pop culture.

Pages: 279 | ASIN: B09GGXLTYK