Ghosts of Interstate 80 is a collection of stories from each of the states through which the I-80 passes. Most of the tales include a brief history of the town involved before moving on to the ghostly goings-on. Some of the stories involve the road itself, while others are concerned with the houses and other buildings that lie alongside the road; as the short introduction notes, the I-80 strode across the land with bold and disruptive steps, knocking through buildings and gravesites alike.

The stories cover protective family ghosts, spirits who return for an annual leer at dancing girls, civil war soldiers, spirit children, ghostly cowboys, mafia, executed prisoners, cannibals, and even a phantom train and car. Some of these stories were interesting, atmospheric, and genuinely creepy, while others were considerably more pedestrian, with nothing new to interest anyone who has ever read a ghost story before.

One thing that I think would have greatly improved this book is the addition of a map, showing the path of I-80 and indicating where the stories came from. The book does have illustrations, of an old-style clip art variety – woodcut/etching line drawings of faces and various objects – but these only add to the low-quality feel of the book. For some reason, the publisher has widely spaced the lines of text, also leaving large gaps at the bottom of each page – perhaps they wanted to increase the page count? So it is my opinion that the book could have been presented in a much better fashion. But if you ignore this, there are some worthwhile stories within Ghosts of Interstate 80, and it could be worth keeping an eye out for other books in the series, looking at spooky stories from various locations around America.

Ghosts of Interstate 80 is available from Julia Messina at Common Grounds Book Cafe.