Buy This Book

Smoke, Fire and Angels
by Mark Robinson

smokeAfter three years of writing this blog, it’s time for a blatant advertisement. So you know I feel this is important. Heck, I haven’t even asked anyone to donate money to the research for Damian’s syndrome.

Please, visit this website and buy the book. And here’s the thing: The author, Mark Robinson, won’t get a dime of your money. Nor will the publisher. Or the printer. Or me for that matter. Nope… 100% of money the book generates will go to the families affected by the Avon Mountain truck disaster. One-Hundred Percent. (100% of the photos on this page are from Mark’s site as well.)

Those of you from around these parts are familiar with “The Mountain.” I’ve written about it in several different contexts on CTMQ and while I love that it casts a shadow on my house, I don’t love that the road over it is an indiscriminate killer. I’ve joked about driving over it many times – as I take that route pretty much any time I’m heading west.

But it’s no joke. And neither is the book, Smoke, Fire and Angels. Mark spoke at my work a few weeks ago and I bought a copy. It’s a very readable, very moving and somewhat startling book. Mark delves into all the lives affected by the crash (5 dead, another dozen severely injured) and picks apart the company’s whose negligence led to the horror and the state law that didn’t stop it before it happened.

Hey, if anything, just buy the book in order to help out the victims – the killer truck was not insured.

sfa-book-coverIt was July 29, 2005, a beautiful summer day in Connecticut’s Farmington River Valley. I was one of a few dozen drivers heading toward Hartford. Most of us were doing what we did hundreds of times a year: simply going to work. There was no way to know what was coming as we approached the traffic light at the base of Avon Mountain and the intersection of Nod Road and Routes 44 and 10, of chance and fate, of wrong place and wrong time.

This is a true story about real people, the best and the most irresponsible among us. It’s about what happened before, during and after one of the worst crashes in Connecticut history. It’s about innocent victims and heroes – everyday people who did extraordinary things, literally picking up the pieces of the broken lives left in the wake of a poorly maintained, uninsured, fully loaded, out-of-control Mack dump truck.

Again… Buy the book.

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