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The Shadow Highway
The Devil's Road

The Shadow Highway

THE DEVIL’S ROAD Chapter 05: Follow the Lead --- Issue 01: The Shadow Highway

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R. Austin Barrow
Jan 14, 2024
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The Shadow Highway
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Welcome to Issue #16 of The Devil’s Road, a serial novel following the exploits of Samantha Hart, a Sequoyah County Sheriff, full of vengeance and fury using her badge to hunt down her sister's killer as she uncovers a trail of bloodshed that coats the heartland. If you missed it, you can read last week’s Chapter 4: Tall in the Saddle, Issue 04: Cold on the Slab.

If you are new to the series, I recommend you check out Chapter 1 which you can read or listen to for free here:

The Devil's Road

The Devil's Road

R. Austin Barrow
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July 27, 2023
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If you are enjoying this series, please consider sharing it with others, and don’t hoard all the good tales for yourself.

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And now, please enjoy Chapter 5 Issue 1 of … The Devil’s Road.


In 2004 an Oklahoma Bureau of Investigations analyst discovered a crime pattern along the Interstate 40 corridor between Oklahoma and Mississippi. Subsequently, The Federal Bureau of Investigations (F.B.I.) started the Highway Serial Killings Initiative. They discovered over 500 bodies of women along the interstate highway system with more than 200 potential suspects, a trail of bloodshed that coats the heartland. The Devil’s Road is a serialized novel based on this horrific discovery.


Lieutenant Samantha Hart uses every ounce of willpower to pull her foot free from the accelerator, which is currently pressed to the floorboard. The Sequoyah County police cruiser slips through the night along Highway 64, the speedometer needle buried below the last number on the dial. All perfectly legal if she had turned on her siren and lights, but that’s the furthest thing from her mind.

She needs to get back to the site and do one more walkthrough before heading into he office. All she can think about is that bag floating off into the wind. She should have done a better inspection of the contents before moving. A dead body shows up on the side of a road with a poor girl’s face torn off and sewn back on, and the sheriff’s department can’t seem to collect all the evidence. No doubt, had the body shown up at the Fort Smith Country Club, there would have been more attention to detail.

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