#196-FTW

 Dear Query Shark,

Part warm body, part social chameleon, fourths have become an accepted part of the commuting landscape. Since Every highway in the newly-invigorated Detroit is restricted to four-passenger cars, Carpools who that come up short must either take surface streets through dangerous neighborhoods or hire extra riders to fill their cars.

This is instantly intriguing. It works  because I believe the premise. It works because it's not the endless stream of same-old set up. (Demons, vampires, girls who must come to terms with being outsiders cause they're were-cheerleaders)

I always like to edit out "Since" as the way to start a sentence. Use "since" sparingly since it requires a "must" clause, and you end up with long-ass sentences.

It's an easy way to earn some extra cash--or to end up dead. Someone is killing fourths and the only one who seems to care is burnt-out homicide cop Francis LaCroix, who moonlights as a fourth himself.

This neatly solves the problem of stakes (the cop might get killed) and why the protagonist needs to investigate (he's a cop, and he's a potential victim.)

Then LaCroix discovers that the dead fourths were are terrorists sabotaging the highways, causing horrific crashes. Worse, his own nephew may be involved in the plot. With both careers on the line, LaCroix needs a shot at redemption, but continuing the investigation paints a target on his family and leaves the terrorists free to strike again. Suddenly, he isn't so sure bringing the killer to justice is the right thing to do.

And there's the twist that gets me really interested.

Watch the tense of your verbs in a query. Pare out every extra then/that/has/was.

TAKING THE HIGHWAY, a science fiction novel, is complete at 93,000 words.

This isn't science fiction. And I'd STRONGLY urge you to not call it science fiction even if you think it is.  There's a lot of room for cross-over into crime fiction here, and by calling it science fiction you might miss an agent who doesn't handle SF but would read this.   Like...me.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

This is a neat tidy job with a good premise that's well presented.  There's no extra stuff mucking up the query. My guess is you'll get requests on this. I'd certainly read pages.