“Well just stay on your side of the car.”

39. Survive the Night – Riley Sager

Charlie’s roommate has been murdered by someone she saw, but didn’t see, and now she’s just leaving school. She finds a serendipitous ride while putting up her sign that she needs to get home and now…she might be in a car with a murderer. It’s a college thriller set in the 1990s, so there are no cell phones, all calls for help must be made with pay phones so you need change or the kindness of strangers! I do like reading books set before the present time for the tension. No one has to drop their phone. No one is staring at their phone. It’s great and I will probably never shut up about it.

I find Riley Sager’s writing very easy to read and plow through entire books in one sitting under most circumstances. This one I managed that on the second try. I wasn’t in the right mood the first time, I don’t think. And Charlie’s not in the right mood for college after Maddie’s murder, yes, that was an excellent segue. Charlie blames herself for Maddie’s murder because when she saw the murderer, she also wasn’t seeing what he really looked like. She was hallucinating a film noir. Charlie has what she calls “movies in her mind” instead of calling them hallucinations and after Maddie’s murder she stopped taking the medication she was given for them so she’s having more during this car trip with a new person who didn’t want her to see what was in his trunk, where her bags now are…

Being trapped in a car with a potential murderer is no fun and Charlie gets stressed as all hell and then sort of decides she’s going to get vengeance because there is no twist coming like there would be in a movie and she’s sure this dude’s the killer because he’s lying about several things. I did like the twist, but not the killer. I guessed that too early.

 

Horace and Peregrine were stuck in the car together many times, but since no one in the car was a murderer or trying to ferret out a murderer, there wasn’t much suspense beyond trying to get them not to nip each other.