Lou Berney / HarperCollins

Frank Guidry is a go-to guy for the New Orleans Mob so when he’s told to drop a getaway car in Dallas, he doesn’t think twice. But when president John F. Kennedy is assassinated, the Mob starts cleaning house. Frank knows too much; it’s time for him to disappear. Running west to Vegas on Route 66, he meets Charlotte, stranded with her two daughters in New Mexico. Hoping to confuse the hit man on his trail – who’s hunting a man travelling alone, not a family – Frank offers her a lift. The inexorable pace of the chase and the poignancy of two fugitives both hoping for a second chance make this several cuts above your standard crime thriller.