Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
A standalone darkly humorous thriller set in modern America's age of anxiety, by New York Times bestselling author Jason Pargin.
Outside Los Angeles, a driver pulls up to find a young woman sitting on a large, black box. She offers him $200,000 cash to transport her and that box across the country, to Washington, DC. But there are rules:
He cannot look inside the box.
He cannot ask questions.
He cannot tell anyone.
They must leave immediately.
He must leave all trackable devices behind.
As the pair hit the road, rumors spread on social media that the mysterious woman was living in an apocalypse shack in the wilderness . . . and that her possessions are radioactive. Amateur sleuths, including a retired FBI agent, believe the box is part of a carefully-orchestrated terror attack intended to plunge the USA into civil war.
What ensues is a chaotic race against time across an angry and anxious nation, an ensemble of eccentric misfits desperately searching for the truth in a dark cloud of paranoia. It quickly becomes clear that regardless of what is or isn't inside that box, this trip is destined to end in fire and screams.