Fran (Not Receiving Notifications)'s Reviews > Dark Roads

An outsider visiting Cold Creek would find a downtown consisting of a truck stop, motel and Mason's Diner. Mason, a retired logger, served meals to road crews, truckers and loggers. Large farms were scattered on the rural outskirts of town. Seventeen year old, Jonny Miller, a dirt bike enthusiast and racer, lived on one such farm. Cold Creek Highway, a span of roughly five hundred miles, cut through a mountainous area. "The forest was a wall of thick impenetrable trees and dense underbrush...deep ravines...and jagged rocks".

Hailey McBride and her dad were a team. "There wasn't much of anything that Dad didn't think could be fixed by spending time in the woods...We were always camping. Rain, shine, snow...find[ing] shelter, water, foraging for berries...we shared our dreams...". Upon her dad's death, she moved in with her Aunt Lana and her husband, Police Sergeant Vaughn. "[Vaughn] had a hero complex and expected me to be grateful that he'd chosen me as a project". The neighborhood kids called him "The Iceman"... a toughie who seemingly cared about the residents of Cold Creek. The town had a checkered past. There had been more than twenty unsolved cases of missing women. A prominently placed billboard's message: "Women- Don't Hitchhike. Dangerous Highway!"

Vaughn liked to make people feel powerless. His overbearing, controlling behavior and threats to Hailey included locking up her dirt bike for not following his rules. Her defiance consisted of meet-ups with her best friend, Jonny to work together on their dirt bikes and hang-outs at the lake with either Jonny or Hailey's love, Amber Chevalier, a waitress at Mason's Diner. But now, Hailey's world was crumbling. Amber was missing. Hailey felt that she had to get out of her aunt's house ASAP. "I would run away-but-I had to stay off the grid-where no one would find me. I would live in the woods until I was of age... The mountains would protect me". Vaughn had creeped her out with his warning, "Whatever you think you found in my office doesn't exist".

One year after Amber's disappearance, her sister Beth attended a memorial in honor of the disappeared/deceased victims of Cold Creek. Sensitive, fragile, grieving Beth wanted to find her sister Amber's killer. Strong willed, determined Hailey would stop at nothing to implicate Vaughn. Would there be justice for Amber?

"Dark Roads" by Chevy Stevens is a riveting thriller, a murder mystery and a survivalist story all rolled into one. The reader can't help but root for the unmasking of the highway killer. Steven's writing created a tense, high octane pace that was unputdownable and begged to be enjoyed in one or two sittings! My favorite protagonist-Wolf!

I received a free ARC of Dark Roads by Chevy Stevens from Macmillan in exchange for an honest review.