Blood Highway

May 15, 2018
A toughened 17-year-old girl is swept up in the exploits of the criminal father she just learned she has in Wohsldorf's (Security, 2016) thriller.When the novel opens, Rainy Cain has crafted a persona for herself that even her closest friends believe: She's a high-achieving high school student and athlete whose single mother works long hours as a cancer nurse. The reality, however, is that Rainy lives with her mentally ill mother and fends for herself completely. Rainy's complicated survival mechanisms, the deep schism between who she is and what people see, and the profound strangeness and violence of life with her mother make her a uniquely compelling character. She has a distinct voice and a dark, dry humor that brings much-needed relief to the extended nightmare she endures. "Cops love acronyms," she notes parenthetically after an officer recounts that he "ripped out his IV, left the hospital AMA, called the FBI," and "gave them the VIN." When Rainy comes home on an otherwise normal Thursday to find her mother dead, her well-crafted persona crumbles. She meets her father, who has escaped from prison and seems to just want to spend time with her. They take to the road. There are robberies, chases, seductions, explosions, car crashes, and murders. Her father is just one of several overly protective men with unclear motives. There is also Blaine, the first officer on the scene when her mother died, who positions himself as her white knight. A love story late in the novel adds more human drama and introduces yet another seemingly well-intentioned man. All this plot outweighs the promising premise. Nonetheless, the fast-paced novel maintains its intensity until the end.A memorable young protagonist already accustomed to lies and chaos finds new depths to both.

COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from June 25, 2018
Wohlsdorf follows her debut, 2016’s Security, with a powerful thriller that focuses on the travails of Rainy Katherine Cain, a preternaturally smart 17-year-old who lives in Minneapolis with her insane mother, a cancer nurse. Mom literally refuses to admit Rainy exists, so she has had to become quite adept at foraging for herself. One day, Rainy comes home from school to discover Mom has committed suicide. Soon afterward, she’s kidnaped by Sam, her supposedly dead father, who has escaped from prison so he can grab her and the $3 million he believes her mother hid away from a robbery. They embark on a horrific odyssey that eventually takes them to the woods in Northern California. A sadistic psychopath, Sam alternates between crooning to his “Kat” that he just wants to take care of her, and robbing and murdering people they run across. Sergeant Blaine, a Minneapolis police detective, follows as best he can, but things keep getting worse. This intense story can be painful to read, but it’s more than worth the ride. Five-city author tour. Agent: Emma Sweeney, Emma Sweeney Agency.

June 1, 2018
Wohlsdorf follows up her conceptually complex debut, Security (2016), with the opposite, a minimalist thriller with a story line that is simplicity itself: a girl on the run with some bad guys. Because of a mentally distant mother, 17-year-old Rainy Cain (her name ought to be a red flag of hard-boiled times ahead) has developed unparalleled survival skills? for example, she can swoop into a restaurant, pretend to be a hostess, and make off with diners' orders. News of her felon husband's escape from prison causes Rainy's mom to kill herself, jamming Rainy between two men: a kindly cop named Blaine and her jailbird dad, Sam, who abducts her and takes her on the road. Well, it's sort of an abduction, and this is the heart of Wohlsdorf's story: Rainy has been training for such an off-the-grid life for so long, why not try it? Rainy's cooler-than-hell vibe and penchant for teenisms (example: things are teriff ) aren't quite enough to shake the feeling we've seen this before, though Sam's slow devolution into full-on villain is impressively upsetting.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)