Gerwin van der Werf is a musicologist, teacher and regular columnist for the Dutch newspaper, Trouw. The Hitchhiker is his fourth novel, but the first to be translated into English.
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Tiddo and his wife Isa have been married for 20 years but they have drifted apart. They haven't had sex for eight years. His 13-year-old son Jonathan is quiet and introverted, constantly drawing monsters and fantasy creatures in a sketchbook.
Tiddo has planned a holiday in Iceland because Isa has always wanted to go. He believes it will save his marriage and reunite his family.
Everything looks promising as they land in Reykjavik, hire a campervan and start to travel the tourist route, visiting the geysers and the waterfall, Gullfloss, before heading south to the glaciers.
As they travel, they notice a lot of hitchhikers, "cheerful . . . apparently having learnt that smiles and waves pay when you are hitchhiking".
Tiddo considers them "pushy" and " a bunch of freeloaders" and refuses to stop. Isa has other views telling him, "picking up hitchhikers can lead to special encounters and interesting conversations".
Therefore, on a cold wet morning they stop for a girl drenched by the side of the road, not realising her male friend was hiding nearby.
Svein Sigurdsson is an American, born in Iceland. He's "handsome and enormous" with blonde shoulder length hair "unruly enough that when you pushed it back with your hand it stayed put for a moment before falling down again in magnificent slow motion".
Tattooed and charismatic, Svein fascinates both Isa and Jonathan, claiming to have been a guide on the glaciers and telling Icelandic folktales of giants, gods and trolls.
Tiddo too begins to trust Svein, confiding in him about his marital problems. Sven tells him "coincidence brings me into peoples lives. Not really a coincidence . . . It's more the forces of nature. I believe these meetings are ordained by nature. I am sent."
But is Svein all that he claims? Does he have other motives, especially when he offers to guide them off the tourist tracks into the mountains? As Tiddo's suspicions grow, the tension builds and the dream holiday becomes a life-threatening nightmare.
The Hitchhiker is a memorable and disturbing psychological thriller, set against the backdrop of the unique and often dangerous landscape of Iceland, "a cruel land of fire and ice" with black lava plains, majestic glaciers and active volcanoes. It's an environment not to be trusted, reflecting the deceptive natures of van der Werf's main characters. The end result is a remarkable achievement.
