If you thought Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock on a bus was thrilling, wait until you meet Chet Griffin, the hero of Joe Quirk"s first novel, The Ultimate Rush. Chet makes his living as the only rollerblading courier in San Francisco, a job that entails screaming down steep hills at high speeds; dodging automobiles, pedestrians, and streetcars; and delivering, among other things, highly illegal stock information all around town. Enter the Chinese Mafia who, for reasons we won"t get into here, consider Griffin a threat; suddenly our hero-on-wheels is in mortal danger from more than just a traffic accident. Targeted by a gang of Chinese killers, Griffin and his girlfriend, Ho, careen through a series of high-speed chases and narrow escapes before finally turning the tables on their tormentors in a bloody, but highly original, finale. What makes The Ultimate Rush such a hoot is the way Quirk piles one thriller-genre cliché after another onto his plot, then puts his own quirky twist on them. Hackers, skateboarders, crooked cops, and Chinese assassins keep Chet and Ho hopping and the reader happily going along for the wild ride from first page to last.