Gwen Moffat lives in Cumbria. Her novels are set in remote communities ranging from the Hebrides to the American West. The crimes fit their environment, swelling that dreadful record of sin in the smiling countryside cited by Sherlock Holmes.
After a short prologue where a killer runs his quarry off the road the story proper starts the previous evening as two nervous women set off from Lubbock, Texas in a bid to make over three hundred miles to Albuquerque before it’s curtains for at least one of them.
Initially they have nothing in common; Rebecca is an elegant political hostess married to a congressman currently in the running for senator while Cait tends bar, concocts on-line gossip in spare moments and dreams of becoming a journalist. To the outsider one woman has it all, the other survives on minimum wages and tips. So why are they together, driving hell for leather across two states in a battered Jeep, and going in fear of their lives? The answer is that although neither woman is a criminal, both have incurred the devastating fury of forces far stronger than themselves.
This tale is a scatter of mosaic, time-scrambled between the participants: a slow revelation of action, character and aspirations. Fault and blame are strong elements; Rebecca is passionate, Cait is careless, both are honest, loyal and stricken with guilt. And both are confronted by the savage obduracy of bigots. For Rebecca is pregnant, and, while adoring children and loving her husband to distraction, she is adamant that she will not have this baby.
Abortion is illegal in Texas, hence the flight across the state-line to New Mexico with Cait, who moonlights as a driver-rescuer for Sisters of Service, a group dedicated to the assistance of women in need. But Cait is a vulnerable ally, hounded by the media and abusive trolls after exposing a sexual pervert on-line. These are women with enemies, and enemies with pull.
To say more would involve spoilers; it’s enough to say that the mysteries are explained, then subsumed in a thrilling car chase: a protracted cat-and-mouse game in the desert where there are no houses and no lights other than the stars and headlights in the mirror.
Characterisation is fine, particularly that of the men, specifically the fearsome campaign manager and the two oafs: psychopaths justifying their attitudes with mad logic, and all nicely resolved in homicide and finally, a cathartic court scene.
This is a horror story about free will and bigotry – and a good read into the bargain.
