Purgatory Road

Starred review from November 28, 2016
In the prologue of Parker’s exceptional first novel, a runaway named Molly, who claims to be 18, heads for trouble near Las Vegas, Nev. Meanwhile, Chicagoans Jack and Laura, a married couple, are enjoying a cheap vacation in Vegas. After a few days, they decide to take a break from the strip and explore the barren countryside outside the city, where their car stops running, despite still having gas, and both of their phones die. Stranded in the desert with a small and rapidly diminishing supply of food and water, the pair are near death before an eccentric recluse, who calls himself Boots, rescues them. Boots’s intervention doesn’t end their peril, and they’re unsettled to learn that he seems to have supernatural abilities. Jack and Laura’s story eventually intersects with Molly’s with violent results, but Parker, unlike lesser suspense writers, succeeds in making the reader feel the tragedy of the victims’ deaths. The strong execution of an original idea makes the prospect of his next book welcome.