‘Mum, please. I need your help. I’ve done something stupid… They’re coming for me.’

Friday, one thirty p.m. Emily Barnes is finishing work for the week, ready for a break from her laptop. Then she receives a panicked voicemail from her son Zach, punctuated by a gunshot.

By four p.m., she's driving a stolen car out of Perth, with explicit instructions from Zach's captors - in three days, deliver the car to Gunpowder Creek, a ghost town 900 kilometres deep into the West Australian outback. Miss the deadline and Zach dies. And don't open the boot.

The job should be simple. But there's someone dangerous roaming those lonely highways. Someone who doesn't want the car and its cargo to make it to Gunpowder Creek. Someone with cold eyes who has seen death and liked it.

For fans of Adrian McKinty and Will Dean, this cat-and-mouse thriller ignites like the fuse on a stick of dynamite.