The Hitchhikers by Canadian author Chevy Stevens (Never Let You Go; That Night) is a dark psychological thriller about a road trip gone horribly wrong.
After a stillbirth derails their marriage, Americans Tom and Alice Bell buy an RV and drive to Montreal to attend the 1976 Olympics in an attempt to regain their footing. Soon into their trip, they meet a young Canadian couple at a campsite who say their names are Ocean and Blue. Ocean is pregnant and the two have no transportation, so Tom and Alice offer them food and company, and then a ride. The situation goes south quickly when Alice discovers that Blue and Ocean are actually Simon Gray and Jenny Perron, wanted by police for the bloody double murder of Jenny's mother and stepfather. When Alice lets it slip that she knows who they are, Simon becomes violent and takes Alice and Tom hostage, forcing them on a terror-filled trip across Canada.
Though the pace never slows in this increasingly frightening thriller, Stevens is able to create nuanced portraits of her characters and their relationships. Alternating between the points of view of Alice and Jenny, Stevens dissects the mother-daughter dyad, revealing both its strength and potential for harm. Indeed, the tension between physical and psychological violence is at the fibrillating heart of the novel, which saves its most shocking twists for the very end. Provocative and full of unexpected left turns, The Hitchhikers is a nail-biter whose complex characters will linger in the imagination long after the last action-packed page is turned. --Debra Ginsberg, author and freelance editor