“Alice. July 5, 1976. The first time Alice saw them, they were walking side by side on the narrow gravel road that led into the RV park and campground. A boy and girl, moving together in a slow, slouching way with his arm around her shoulders, and her hand tucked into the back pocket of his bell-bottoms. His army-style backpack looked heavy, the seams stretching, a rolled-up orange sleeping bag tied to the bottom.”
That’s the beginning to Chevy Stevens’ thriller The Hitchhikers. After the loss of an infant, Alice and her husband Tom have set out on an RV road trip through Canada, hoping to heal. Alice and Tom take a liking to the teenage hitchhikers, Ocean and Blue, and offer to give them a lift and feed them for a couple of days.
At one of their stops, Alice sees a newspaper article about a search for two teenage hitchhikers, Jenny and Simon, who have been accused of brutally murdering the girl’s mother and stepfather. The accompanying photo convinces Alice that Jenny and Simon and Ocean and Blue are one and the same.
When Simon realizes they have been found out, he beats Tom badly enough to incapacitate him, leaving Alice to drive the RV and do Simon’s bidding. As they travel through Canada, there are more beatings, death, and robberies. Alice finds strength she doesn’t know she had as she fights to save Tom’s and her own life.
As the publicist wrote, there is “non-stop action, intense standoffs, nail-biting robberies and more, and then ends on a sweet and hopeful note,” believe it or not. The non-stop action does make it very hard to put down.
If you’re interested in thrillers, then you must read The Hitchhikers by Chevy Stevens.
