STAY ON THE MOVE. STAY OUT OF SIGHT.

In LA Times Book Prizewinner Stuart Neville’s daring foray into horror fiction, a mother takes desperate measures to protect her daughter in a sinister, blood-chilling highway pursuit across the American West.

On a snowy December night, single mother Rebecca Carter drives her van into a snowbank to avoid hitting an elk on a desolate mountain highway. She is at the end of her rope, out of money and food. Still, she refuses help from a man in a pickup truck—Rebecca’s adolescent daughter, Moonflower, is on the run from a grisly secret, and the last thing they can afford is to be remembered by anyone they meet.

Meanwhile, Special Agent Marc Donner of the FBI has spent the better part of two years hunting down a gruesome serial killer who drains victims of blood before severing their spinal cords, leaving a trail of bodies throughout the American West. As Agent Donner’s investigation brings him closer and closer to where Rebecca and Moonflower are hiding out, in the foothills of Colorado, the life that Rebecca has fought so hard to hold together for her daughter becomes increasingly imperilled.

In this deadly, high-stakes game of cat and mouse by the Los Angeles Times Book Prize winning author of THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST, nobody is safe and nothing is certain—not even the line between predator and prey.

I received an advance galley of this book courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley. All thoughts are my own.

I will always say yes to a book where the synopsis implies that it takes place in a dark, cold, isolated setting. Something about this type of book really unnerves me. Throw in a serial killer, a woman on the run protecting her daughter, and an FBI agent in hot pursuit, and I am sold. This book ended up completely different from what I expected when I read the synopsis, but it worked. It’s also going to make this a tough one to review because I don’t want to spoil anything (though it becomes pretty obvious what is going on a few chapters into the book).

The book focuses on three characters: Rebecca Carter, her daughter Monika (aka Moonflower), and detective Marc Donner. Rebecca is a no-nonsense single mother who will stop at nothing to keep her daughter safe. When they find themselves in a desperate situation on a snowy highway in the mountains, Rebecca’s determination to stay under the radar is shot when she runs off the road into a snowbank, and an older gentleman stops to help her. She refuses his help, but he gets a pretty good look at her, and she is afraid her cover may have been blown.

Special Agent Marc Donner has been hunting down a sadistic serial killer who drains their victims of blood and then severs their spinal cord. A man was recently found dead in the area, and his wounds match those inflicted by the suspected serial killer. When he questions the older man who found the body (the same man who stopped to help Rebecca), he decides he needs to speak with her, setting off a chain of events that changes the trajectory of the lives of our main characters.

At the heart of the story is Rebecca’s determination to protect her daughter, and this soon turns into a cat-and-mouse game between Rebecca and Agent Donner, adding an extra layer of excitement to the story. As their paths draw closer and closer, the tension becomes almost unbearable. Neville’s writing is sharp and fast-paced, keeping readers hooked until the last page.

It’s the characters that really make the story. Rebecca is a tenacious mother, and I respected her need and desperate determination to protect her daughter. She sacrificed so much for her, and it was heartbreaking at times to see the lengths she would go to keep her safe. Agent Donner is also an interesting antagonist – mainly because we know he is only doing his job, and in the real world, he would be the good guy, while Rebecca and Moonflower would be the dreaded enemy.

The book alternates between the three main character’s perspectives, and then peppered amongst the narrative are letters written by Rebecca that have been collected by the FBI and are being used as evidence. All this weaves together to give us a complete story of what happened to Moonflower, why she and Rebecca are on the run, and the hunt to track them down. I really wanted Rebecca and Moonflower to be ok, but we know their situation will not have a happy ending – though it did have a surprising one!

Even though it felt familiar due to hints of “Let the Right One In,” I was still totally invested in this story, and much of that had to do with how fast-paced it was. I read this in a single sitting and had a lot of fun doing it. It’s a rollercoaster of a book that had me rapidly flipping the pages until the very end.

Overall, I found this to be an engaging, fast-paced thriller that held my attention until the end. If you like questionable characters you care about, and a high-stakes game of cat and mouse that will keep you rapidly flipping the pages, this might be a good one to add to your Halloween TBR.