One of the hundred books a year I read:

Young couple James and Elle Eversman are traveling across the vast Western U.S. when they encounter a detour through the desert. Despite their trepidation, they take the dirt road assuming that it would be faster than backtracking miles to the last strange town they had encountered.

After driving for several miles through a giant bowl in the desert with nothing but the ridges surrounding them within sight, they encounter a man stumbling along the edge of the road. They stop to help him and discover he has been shot. A bullet has grazed his skull, exposing the glistening bone beneath and leaving the man partially incoherent. In trying to summon help, they discover their cell phones no longer work and their car will not start.

To their great relief, they discover a second car has taken the detour and soon joins them on the side of the road. To everyone’s dismay, they discover that car also will no longer start, a victim of a bullet to the engine block.

As they scan the horizon, they realize that they are being stalked by a sniper, a man of intense ability and insane goals. They have only two possible ways to survive: survive until dark and run miles undetected across the valley to safety or sneak a mile across the open desert and incapacitate their attacker. Neither seems likely as the sniper’s deadly aim slowly picks them off one by one.