The Highway
Reviewing Back of Beyond (2011), we wrote that Box’s short-fused Montana cop, Cody Hoyt, had series potential. Well, he’s back, along with other characters from that book, for a creepy thriller about a serial killer whose job as a long-haul trucker provides the perfect cover for his crimes. Cody has just been fired for planting evidence, and it was his own partner, Cassandra Dewell, who caught him. But then teenagers Danielle and Gracie Sullivan—the same girls he helped rescue the last time out—are abducted en route to a Thanksgiving reunion with Cody’s son, Justin. Can Cody and Cassie work together to find the girls in time? Box’s Joe Pickett series has, over 13 installments, been nearly perfect. But his stand-alones have been a mixed bag, from the stellar Blue Heaven (2008) to the forgettable Three Weeks to Say Goodbye (2009). This one’s somewhere in the middle: Box handles his large cast of characters capably, but, despite the chilling and timely scenario, the usually sure-handed author never quite gets our hearts racing. --Keir Graff