Product Details
Simon & Schuster UK, September 2010
eBook, 288 pages
ISBN-10: 184983069X
ISBN-13: 9781849830690
Description
Nate and Sara are broke -- and on the run from the past.
When a shady hitchhiker offers them cold hard cash for a lift, they can't afford to say no.
But very soon they'll be wishing they had. Because picking him up is about to become the biggest mistake they ever made -- and the price they'll have to pay will be greater than they ever could have imagined...
When a shady hitchhiker offers them cold hard cash for a lift, they can't afford to say no.
But very soon they'll be wishing they had. Because picking him up is about to become the biggest mistake they ever made -- and the price they'll have to pay will be greater than they ever could have imagined...
How did you come to write this book?
I almost didn’t.
I wrote the first seventy pages and hit a wall. I couldn’t see anything of the story beyond that point, so I stored the file away in a dusty corner of my hard drive and moved on.
A few months later, I found the file and read the pages over again. They were better than I remembered, so I printed them out and asked my wife to take a look and give me her opinion.
I was in my office working on another project when she came back with those first seventy pages. She handed them to me and said, “You have to finish this, because I need to know what happens.”
So I did.
'A well-crafted, tightly-plotted thriller which steadily cranks up the sense of menace page by page. You know something bad's going to happen, and you just have to keep reading... I really enjoyed it'
Simon Kernick
'Dark unalloyed menace from beginning to end. This is sheer noir. Rector is the best find I've made all year'
Tony Black
'Wonderfully compelling. Could almost see the film racing across my eyes'
Maxim Jakubowski
'Tense, taut, throat-grabbing. John Rector is far more accomplished than his years. Reads like a cross between NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN and DELIVERANCE. Terrific'
Eric Van Lustbader
'THE COLD KISS is a slice of tragicomic noir Americana, a spiraling tale of bad luck and viciousness leavened only by author John Rector's savage glee at the ever worsening state of his protagonists' circumstances. One of the best debuts I've read in a very long time'
Scott Phillips, author of THE ICE HARVEST
'You're definitely going to want to read this. The prose is clean, the characters relatable, and the dialogue is tight as a drum... But what will truly keep you captive is the suspension-bridge-cable tension...'
Spinetinglers
'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... Rector takes a classic noir setup and makes the most of it through clever plotting and spare prose'
Publisher's Weekly
'Portents of disaster accumulate like wind-driven snow... A sly and very accomplished first novel'
Booklist
'Highly rewarding... I just couldn't stop reading... There's no better place to spend a few imaginative hours these days than Rector's snowbound motel'
National Review
Anniston Star, August 21, 2010
...storytelling and brought it mainstream success through subsequent efforts Fargo and No Country for Old Men. This year, John Rector hopes to channel the popularity of this tradition that first found its home on the silver screen. In his debut ...
TwinCities.com, August 1, 2010
...treats for dogs served on the patio. 1 p.m. today; Red Balloon, 891 Grand Ave., St. Paul. John Rector: Signs copies of "The Cold Kiss," about a Minnesota couple snowbound in a Nebraska motel. 1-3 p.m. Saturday; Once Upon a Crime, 604 W. 26th ...
Omaha World-Herald, July 25, 2010
...Go ahead, pick John Rector's sort-of debut novel ?The Cold Kiss? up and chances are you'll find yourself flying through as the suspense builds and builds. The disclaimer is needed since Rector ...
