Dark Roads Review

Author: Chevy Stevens

Genre: Thriller

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Release Date: Aug. 3, 2021

Order Link: Amazon

My Rating: 5 Dark Hearts

Special thanks to St. Martins Press for an arc of this book.

The acclaimed and beloved author of Still Missing is back with her most breathtaking thriller yet.

Review:

Don't you love it when one of your most highly anticipated books meets all your expectations?  I do!  I just knew Dark Roads was going to be special.  What I didn't anticipate was it sucking me in on page one and keeping its claws in me until The End . . . in the wee hours of the morning.  Yes, I pulled an all-nighter reading this one.  It's that good!

Dark Roads is a well-crafted, high octane thriller with serious creepy vibes.  For years, young women (especially First Nation heritage) have disappeared along the rugged, isolated five hundred miles of highway running through British Columbia including the small town of Cold Creek.  Some are never found, but the brutally tortured bodies of others are discovered.  The killer has never been caught.  Women are warned to never hitchhike or stray far from home alone.  But after a period of time, they tend to get complacent.  Mistake #1.

When seventeen year old Hailey's father is killed in a car crash, she's forced to move in with her aunt and her husband Vaughn who is a Cold Creek Police Sergeant known as the Iceman by locals for his cold, intimidating, over-bearing presence.  It quickly becomes clear to Hailey that something's off about Vaughn other than his hero complex as he starts domineering and micromanaging her life.  While Hailey gets dangerous vibes from him, she tries to get along for the benefit of her aunt and young son knowing she can live on her own in a year when she turns eighteen . . .  until she discovers some of his hidden secrets, and he knows it.  Hailey's danger radar is screaming for her to run so she plans her escape with her best friend Jonny.

Beth comes to Cold Creek looking for some peace . . . and the man who murdered her sister.  Having left school and home, she's on her own.  Lucky for her, her sister's old job at Mason's diner is open so she starts working while rattling old skeletons.  It soon becomes clear she fits the killer's profile of a preferred victim, and she's now on his radar.  Living in a secluded campground outside of town, Beth is in imminent danger of becoming a victim.  Can she find the killer . . . before he finds her?

Dark Roads is one of the best thrillers I've read this year.  The story unfolds in three parts and mostly from two points of view - Hailey's and Beth's.  This story really takes off after their paths cross and become intertwined.  I'm being intentionally vague because the impact of this book is most fully felt by going in blind as I did.  Tension radiates off the pages in dark, creepy waves driving an ever increasing pace to a stunning ending that I didn't see coming more than a few pages before the characters did.  And then, there's the epilogue that brought tears to my eyes while connecting everything together.  If that's not enough, reading the author's letter to readers at the end and learning this fictitious story is based on the Trail of Tears and the murders of several indigenous women over years by a killer yet to be caught - well, that sealed the deal for me.   Dark Roads is a complex, graphic, highly atmospheric must read for fans of suspense and thrillers.  Highly recommended!

Synopsis:

The Cold Creek Highway stretches close to five hundred miles through British Columbia’s rugged wilderness to the west coast. Isolated and vast, it has become a prime hunting ground for predators. For decades, young women traveling the road have gone missing. Motorists and hitchhikers, those passing through or living in one of the small towns scattered along the region, have fallen prey time and again. And no killer or abductor who has stalked the highway has ever been brought to justice.

Hailey McBride calls Cold Creek home. Her father taught her to respect nature, how to live and survive off the land, and to never travel the highway alone. Now he’s gone, leaving her a teenage orphan in the care of her aunt whose police officer husband uses his badge as a means to bully and control Hailey. Overwhelmed by grief and forbidden to work, socialize, or date, Hailey vanishes into the mountainous terrain, hoping everyone will believe she’s left town. Rumors spread that she was taken by the highway killer—who’s claimed another victim over the summer.

One year later, Beth Chevalier arrives in Cold Creek, where her sister Amber lived—and where she was murdered. Estranged from her parents and seeking closure, Beth takes a waitressing job at the local diner, just as Amber did, desperate to understand what happened to her and why. But Beth’s search for answers puts a target on her back—and threatens to reveal the truth behind Hailey’s disappearance…

CHEVY STEVENS lives on Vancouver Island with her husband and daughter. When she’s not working on her next book, she’s hiking with her two dogs on her favorite mountain trails and spending time with her family. Chevy's current obsessions are vintage airstreams, Hollywood memoirs, and all things mid-century modern.

Chevy's debut novel, STILL MISSING, was a New York Times bestseller and won the International Thriller Writers Award for Best First Novel. Her books, including THOSE GIRLS which Stephen King called "incredibly scary" have been published in more than thirty countries. Her seventh novel, DARK ROADS, will be released summer 2021. Please visit her at www.ChevyStevens.com.