The Cold Kiss - Hardcover

Rector, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0765326434 ISBN 13: 9780765326430

Publisher: Forge Books, 2010

Synopsis

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.

At first it seems like easy money, 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 most importantly, why he was carrying two million dollars in his suitcase.

Before they know it, Nate and Sara are fighting for their lives, and in the end, each has to decide just how far they are willing to go to survive.

The Cold Kiss is an everyman psychological thriller that pits a young couple against moral corruption, greed, betrayal, and love. More simply, for two characters who may have used up all their chances, it’s the classic final trip down the dark tunnel that might lead to heaven, but drags them through hell.  This is A Simple Plan meets The Getaway, with a pulse-pounding plot and a twist ending.  John Rector is name that all thriller fans will come to know and love for years to come.

About this title

About the Author

John Rector is a prize-winning short story writer and Colorado native currently living in Omaha, Nebraska.  The Cold Kiss is his first published novel. 

Reviews

Dean Koontz fans will find much to like in Rector's debut, a contemporary thriller about a couple on the lam. Nate and his pregnant fiancée, Sara, who each have reason for fleeing their pasts, end up in a situation straight out of Hitchcock on their drive from Minnesota to get married in Reno, Nev. While at a highway rest stop in Nebraska, Sara takes pity on a fellow diner patron, Syl White, who's coughing up blood, and persuades Nate to give the man a ride after his car won't start. When a blizzard forces them to pull in at an isolated motel, Nate and Sara are horrified to find that their passenger has died. After discovering White had almost million in cash with him, the pair plan to conceal the corpse in the growing snowdrifts and use the money to start a new life. Of course, things only get increasingly complicated and violent. While some may find the end a copout, Rector takes a stock noir setup and makes the most of it through clever plotting and spare prose.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Nate and Sara, who is pregnant, are in love. Both are fleeing childhoods marked by deprivation, and they're driving to Reno to get married. At a rest stop in rural Nebraska, a man who is visibly sick offers them $500 to drive him to Omaha. Needing the cash, they agree and set off into an ever-worsening snowstorm. Hours later, in near-whiteout conditions, they are forced to stop at a shabby motel, where they discover that their passenger has no pulse. In the man's possessions, they find $2 million in cash. Although honest and decent, Nate and Sara agonize over the fortune in their hands. Their choices and the actions of others stranded at the motel generate a whirlpool of greed, betrayal, depravity, viciousness, and violence. Characters gradually reveal alarming proclivities, and portents of disaster accumulate like wind-driven snow. Rector's spare, unadorned style makes these portents and proclivities even more jarring. A sly and very accomplished first novel. --Thomas Gaughan

Edition details

• Publisher: Forge Books
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0765326434
• ISBN 13: 9780765326430
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288