"When people say they want to read a really good novel, the kind you just can't put down, this is the kind of book they mean. Exceptional." STEPHEN KING
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY Entertainment Weekly Washington Post AARP Newsweek Dallas Morning News South Florida Sun-Sentinel Chicago Public Library Real Book Spy CrimeReads Litreactor Library Journal LitHub Booklist
Winner of theBarry,Macavity, and Anthony Awards, theHammett Prize, theLeft Coast Crime Lefty Award for Best Mystery Novel, and theOklahoma Book Award for Best Fiction Novel!
Set against the assassination of JFK, a poignant and evocative crime novel that centers on a desperate cat-and-mouse chase across 1960s Americaa story of unexpected connections, daring possibilities, and the hope of second chances from the Edgar Award-winning author of The Long and Faraway Gone.
Frank Guidrys luck has finally run out.
A loyal street lieutenant to New Orleans mob boss Carlos Marcello, Guidry has learned that everybody is expendable. But now its his turnhe knows too much about the crime of the century: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Within hours of JFKs murder, everyone with ties to Marcello is turning up dead, and Guidry suspects hes next: he was in Dallas on an errand for the boss less than two weeks before the president was shot. With few good options, Guidry hits the road to Las Vegas, to see an old associatea dangerous man who hates Marcello enough to help Guidry vanish.
Guidry knows that the first rule of running is "dont stop," but when he sees a beautiful housewife on the side of the road with a broken-down car, two little daughters and a dog in the back seat, he sees the perfect disguise to cover his tracks from the hit men on his tail. Posing as an insurance man, Guidry offers to help Charlotte reach her destination, California. If she accompanies him to Vegas, he can help her get a new car.
For her, its more than a car its an escape. Shes on the run too, from a stifling existence in small-town Oklahoma and a kindly husband whos a hopeless drunk.
Its an American story: two strangers meet to share the open road west, a dream, a hopeand find each other on the way.
Charlotte sees that hes strong and kind; Guidry discovers that shes smart and funny. He learns thats she determined to give herself and her kids a new life; she cant know that hes desperate to leave his old one behind.
Another rulefugitives shouldnt fall in love, especially with each other. A road isnt just a road, its a trail, and Guidrys ruthless and relentless hunters are closing in on him. But now Guidry doesnt want to just survive, he wants to really live, maybe for the first time.
Everyones expendable, or they should be, but now Guidry just cant throw away the woman hes come to love.
And it might get them both killed.
