Cold Kiss
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Review
'A well-crafted, tightly-plotted thriller which steadily cranks up the sense of menace page by page. You know something bad's going to happen, and you just have to keep reading... I really enjoyed it' --Simon Kernick
'Dark unalloyed menace from beginning to end... Rector is the best find I've made all year' --Tony Black
'Wonderfully compelling. Could almost see the film racing across my eyes' --Maxim Jakubowski
'Tense, taut, throat-grabbing. John Rector is far more accomplished than his years. Reads like a cross between No Country for Old Men and Deliverance. Terrific' --Eric Van Lustbader
'One of the best debuts I've read in a very long time' --Scott Phillips
'You're definitely going to want to read this. The prose is clean, the characters relatable, and the dialogue is tight as a drum... But what will truly keep you captive is the suspension-bridge-cable tension...' --Spinetinglers
'Dean Koontz fans will find much to like in Rector's debut, a contemporary thriller about a couple on the lam. Nate and his pregnant fiancée, Sara, who each have reason for fleeing their pasts, end up in a situation straight out of Hitchcock on their drive from Minnesota to get married in Reno... Rector takes a classic noir setup and makes the most of it through clever plotting and spare prose' --Publisher's Weekly
'Highly rewarding... I just couldn't stop reading... There's no better place to spend a few imaginative hours these days than Rector's snowbound motel' --National Review
'Portents of disaster accumulate like wind-driven snow... A sly and very accomplished first novel'
--Booklist
'Dark unalloyed menace from beginning to end... Rector is the best find I've made all year' --Tony Black
'Wonderfully compelling. Could almost see the film racing across my eyes' --Maxim Jakubowski
'Tense, taut, throat-grabbing. John Rector is far more accomplished than his years. Reads like a cross between No Country for Old Men and Deliverance. Terrific' --Eric Van Lustbader
'One of the best debuts I've read in a very long time' --Scott Phillips
'You're definitely going to want to read this. The prose is clean, the characters relatable, and the dialogue is tight as a drum... But what will truly keep you captive is the suspension-bridge-cable tension...' --Spinetinglers
'Dean Koontz fans will find much to like in Rector's debut, a contemporary thriller about a couple on the lam. Nate and his pregnant fiancée, Sara, who each have reason for fleeing their pasts, end up in a situation straight out of Hitchcock on their drive from Minnesota to get married in Reno... Rector takes a classic noir setup and makes the most of it through clever plotting and spare prose' --Publisher's Weekly
'Highly rewarding... I just couldn't stop reading... There's no better place to spend a few imaginative hours these days than Rector's snowbound motel' --National Review
'Portents of disaster accumulate like wind-driven snow... A sly and very accomplished first novel'
--Booklist
Product Description
Nate and Sara are broke -- and on the run from the past. When a shady hitchhiker offers them cold hard cash for a lift, they can't afford to say no. But very soon they'll be wishing they had. Because picking him up is about to become the biggest mistake they ever made -- and the price they'll have to pay will be greater than they could ever have imagined...
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
John Rector's "Cold Kiss" conforms to most of the conventions of the classic "noir" thriller, but not quite all. Where in true "noir" you know from the off that things are going to go horribly wrong for the protagonists, here John Rector offers a glimmer of hope and redemption for his two main characters. Nate and Sara are a young couple on the run from their past, innocently seeking a new start in life. Driving through mid-western America in a worsening snowstorm, they pick up a sickly hitch-hiker and no sooner have they found a snowbound motel in which to shelter from the storm, their passenger seems to die on them. He is also found to have rather a large amount of cash on him. On impulse, Nate decides to lose the body and keep the money and thus (innocently)starts a maelstrom of suspicion and violence, culminating in a very bloody climax.
If the plot does creak slightly in places and there are obvious nods to movies such as "Shallow Grave" and "Fargo", this is still a tightly-written, hardboiled little thriller which moves at a fast pace and you think it cannot possibly end happily. But does it?
If the plot does creak slightly in places and there are obvious nods to movies such as "Shallow Grave" and "Fargo", this is still a tightly-written, hardboiled little thriller which moves at a fast pace and you think it cannot possibly end happily. But does it?
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
There's plenty to like about The Cold Kiss. As one of the characters remarks, there's something of an old-fashioned whodunit feel to things when a group of strangers become stranded in a motel and things start to go wrong.
Nate and his girlfriend Sara are heading to Reno to get married. There's a baby on the way and they're hoping to make a fresh start. As things unfold, we'll come to realise that this is certainly a good idea as far as Nate is concerned.
On the way, stopping of for coffee, they encounter a man with a cough who's rumbling lungs sound very unhealthy. The man goes to the bathroom and Nate, under pressure from Sarah, goes to check that he's OK.
As expected, he isn't. He's coughed up enough blood to paint the toilet bowl, though his physical condition hasn't improved his manners any.
Just as it looks like the tension between the two guys has passed, they meet again as Nate stops to fill up with fuel.
Sly, the ill guy, has buttered up Sarah by the time Nate returns from paying. He needs a lift and he's prepared to pay. Nate wants to say no, but the persuasive powers of love and money get him to change his mind and it's not long before he wishes they hadn't.
Here's a snippet from just before they decide to let Sly into their car:
'"Kiss me for luck."
I frowned. "That doesn't work."
"Of course it does," she said. "It always works. Now kiss me."
I stared at her for a moment longer, then bent and placed my lips against hers.
It was a good kiss.
But it didn't work.'
And from then on, you just know.
The snow falls hard, Sly falls unconscious on the back seat and our couple have to pull in at a hotel for the night.
As they set to unpack it turns out Sly has died on them. Maybe it had something to do with the bullet wound they found in his side.
Sly also has a huge amount of cash on him.
And that's when the fun really starts.
The motel is run by an old-man and his religious lunatic of a nephew. There's a couple on tour and a Russian lady with unusual scars on her arms.
In order to avoid revealing too much of the plot, that seems like a good time to stop.
Suffice it to say that things don't go well.
Essentially the book has two settings, the motel and the inside of Nate's head.
We're taken along by a convincing first-person narrative that is thoroughly engaging.
The drama is heightened at regular intervals as Rector cranks up the gears until things are moving too quickly to end well.
All the way through, the writing is lean and strong.
To my mind, the best part of the work comes at the end. It's not the adventurous series of nightmare situations that really satisfied me here, (though that would have been enough), but the superb ending as Part 3 talks us through the way the survivors respond to the action. It would have easy to have left it at the end of the adrenaline bursts, but Rector takes it further and in doing show pulls out a handful of aces.
Nate and his girlfriend Sara are heading to Reno to get married. There's a baby on the way and they're hoping to make a fresh start. As things unfold, we'll come to realise that this is certainly a good idea as far as Nate is concerned.
On the way, stopping of for coffee, they encounter a man with a cough who's rumbling lungs sound very unhealthy. The man goes to the bathroom and Nate, under pressure from Sarah, goes to check that he's OK.
As expected, he isn't. He's coughed up enough blood to paint the toilet bowl, though his physical condition hasn't improved his manners any.
Just as it looks like the tension between the two guys has passed, they meet again as Nate stops to fill up with fuel.
Sly, the ill guy, has buttered up Sarah by the time Nate returns from paying. He needs a lift and he's prepared to pay. Nate wants to say no, but the persuasive powers of love and money get him to change his mind and it's not long before he wishes they hadn't.
Here's a snippet from just before they decide to let Sly into their car:
'"Kiss me for luck."
I frowned. "That doesn't work."
"Of course it does," she said. "It always works. Now kiss me."
I stared at her for a moment longer, then bent and placed my lips against hers.
It was a good kiss.
But it didn't work.'
And from then on, you just know.
The snow falls hard, Sly falls unconscious on the back seat and our couple have to pull in at a hotel for the night.
As they set to unpack it turns out Sly has died on them. Maybe it had something to do with the bullet wound they found in his side.
Sly also has a huge amount of cash on him.
And that's when the fun really starts.
The motel is run by an old-man and his religious lunatic of a nephew. There's a couple on tour and a Russian lady with unusual scars on her arms.
In order to avoid revealing too much of the plot, that seems like a good time to stop.
Suffice it to say that things don't go well.
Essentially the book has two settings, the motel and the inside of Nate's head.
We're taken along by a convincing first-person narrative that is thoroughly engaging.
The drama is heightened at regular intervals as Rector cranks up the gears until things are moving too quickly to end well.
All the way through, the writing is lean and strong.
To my mind, the best part of the work comes at the end. It's not the adventurous series of nightmare situations that really satisfied me here, (though that would have been enough), but the superb ending as Part 3 talks us through the way the survivors respond to the action. It would have easy to have left it at the end of the adrenaline bursts, but Rector takes it further and in doing show pulls out a handful of aces.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I bought this book after hearing a review on the radio and couldn't wait to read it. I was very disappointed as it had been described as a very gripping thriller and for me it just wasn't. As the story went on it I thought the plot got more unlikely. It is one of those books that you think is going to get better the more you read it but before you know it you are at the end and thats that!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Good idea- overcooked story
This book had lots of potential. The plot is simple and the prose sparse. No unnecessary long winded descriptions,no padding. In my opinion 2 key ingredients for a good book. Read more
Published 1 month ago by LouiseV
edge of my seat
this book had me captivated from the very first page. powerful on the edge of your seat stuff. the characters were very well drawn and the story just flowed, just couldnt put it... Read more
Published 3 months ago by schoolescort
A great page turner!
I've never read a book by this author, and was pleasantly surprised!
The 2 main characters Nate and Sara are 'interesting' from the start of the book and entice you into... Read more
The 2 main characters Nate and Sara are 'interesting' from the start of the book and entice you into... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Helen Fog
A great and very powerful book
I read this book in record time and that's purely because I just had to keep turning the page to find out what was going to happen next. Read more
Published 6 months ago by maryscot0509
Chilling
Nate and Sara are driving through snowy America, hoping to make a fresh start in Nevada. Along the way, they are persuaded to pick up a hitchhiker called Syl who offers them $500... Read more
Published 14 months ago by Julia Flyte
Thou shalt not steal?
I found the setting wonderfully claustrophobic and I loved the way little twists were eked into the plot throughout the book. Read more
Published 17 months ago by Raven
What a story!
I loved this story, although I am not sure what the title has got to do with it. Great suspense all the way through, and just when you thought it can't get worse, it will. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Bookworm
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