Hi guys, wondering if anyone has ever read this novel from the 60s or 70s.
The story is about a car load of teenagers who try to hijack a lorry load of whisky.
The heist goes wrong and the driver is killed during their escape but not before another driver from the same company sees the car.
Keeping in touch by radio the drivers try and track down the car.
Only ever read the first half of the book and would love to get a copy but can’t recall name of book or author.
Thanks in advance Duncan.
THE FAMOUS FIVE BY ENID BLYTON.
I thought I had it somewhere in a drawer and have found it.
It’s called Truck by Peter Cave published by Everest.
peggydeckboy:
THE FAMOUS FIVE BY ENID BLYTON.
That’s a bit naughty, PDB. 
Carryfast:
Front cover.
Lorry drivers taking the law into their own hands, or breaking the law in any way? 
Has to be a work of fiction.
Thanks very much to everyone who replied.
Managed to track down a copy for the sum of £4.50
Arrived today.
You have now got me thinking Dunky. 
What was the name of that book where a lorry driver’s daughter is kidnapped and held to ransom, with her father being forced to deliver a nuclear explosive device to somewhere in Europe. I.I.R.C., he had to park the truck next to an American Airforce Base where nuclear weapons were stored. I think that the company was called ‘Whippet Freight’ or something like that, I also think that Swindon might have been mentioned.
Hi Mushroomman
I knew I knew the book - it just took me a while to remember the title.
The novel you are after is RETURN LOAD by Douglas Rutherford
Details are :-
When Bob Chester set out for the toe of Italy with his wife Sally and his little daughter Josie in the sleeper cab of his 30-ton truck, it seemed like a family excursion. But Cardona and his associates needed just such a vehicle. They also needed its crew. And there was one sure way of getting Bob and Sally’s cooperation for a return load, as it was called.
If the life of your only child is at stake, how far will you go? What hardships and exhaustions will you suffer? What degradations will you accept? And when, compared with that one life, nothing else in the world matters, is there anyone you can count as your friend? Bob and Sally learn the answers to these questions on the next 2,000 miles.
ISBN: 0002318385
ISBN13: 9780002318389
Release Date: January 1977
Publisher: Walker
Length: 252 Pages
Hope this helps you
Steve
mushroomman:
You have now got me thinking Dunky.What was the name of that book where a lorry driver’s daughter is kidnapped and held to ransom, with her father being forced to deliver a nuclear explosive device to somewhere in Europe. I.I.R.C., he had to park the truck next to an American Airforce Base where nuclear weapons were stored. I think that the company was called ‘Whippet Freight’ or something like that, I also think that Swindon might have been mentioned.
Thanks SMS 1965, 
after two weeks and having no replies to my question, I was beginning to think that maybe I had dreamt about that book.
It seemed like a good read at the time and as the author had mentioned a couple of places that were quite popular with British drivers, then that was one of the things that made it interesting.
I wonder if Douglas Rutherford was an ex lorry driver.
Edit To Add.
No, he wasn’t a lorry driver.
Hi Mushroonman
Nope, Doulas Rutherford was Born in Kilkenny, Ireland 14 October 1915. He went to school in Yorkshire, studied at Clare College, Cambridge graduating in 1937, and received his MA from the University of Reading. During the Second World War, he served in the British Army Intelligence Corps in North Africa and Italy. After demobilisation, he became a modern languages teacher at Eton College from 1946 until his retirement in 1973.[1]
Writing on weekends and holidays, he published his first novel, Comes the Blind Fury, in 1950. Many of his works centered on race-tracks or sports cars. With Francis Durbridge, he co-authored two novels in the Paul Temple series: The Tyler Mystery in 1957 and East of Algiers in 1959. Under the name James McConnell, he published books on learning foreign languages and on Eton.
He died on 29 April 1988 in Monxton, Hampshire.
All info from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Rutherford
I must admit, I knew the book, just could not remember the title until I had a brain flash yesterday
I have read it a couple of times and if I remember correctly, they drove a MAN Raushaus
I think I still may have a copy back in the UK somewhere.
Yes Steve, it must have been about the mid eighties when I read that book and that’s right, he did have a M.A.N.
Apart from that one and Cola Cowboys they are the only two ‘trucking’ books that I can think of that were around at the time.