A young couple looking to start fresh in a new town wind up fighting for their lives at a desert motel in this "sly and very accomplished" debut thriller ( Booklist ).

All Nate and Sara want is a new life in a new town, away from the crime and poverty of their past. So, after being approached at a roadside diner by a man offering $500 for a ride to Omaha, they wonder if their luck might be changing. But within a few hours the man is dead.

Now, forced off the road by a blizzard and trapped in a run-down motel on the side of a deserted highway, Nate and Sara begin to uncover the man's secrets. Who he was, how he died—and why he was carrying two million dollars in cash. Before they know it, Nate and Sara are fighting for their lives—and each will have to decide just how far they are willing to go to survive.

John Rector