REVIEW: "Hairpin Bridge" by Taylor Adams
In times of intense turmoil, I thirst for facts. Finding out exactly what happened becomes less of a want and more of a need. It’s as if, without these facts, the truth becomes almost indigestible.
I was reminded of the struggle that I have in coming to terms with upsetting things — things with which I wish I didn’t have to come to terms — early in the reading of this novel.
I was in the midst of what seemed to be a perfect evening, 60 pages into this highly anticipated novel and comfortably numbed by the vodka on which I had been sipping away, when my husband called.
I could tell that something was wrong by the tone of his voice but, even still, I wasn’t prepared when he told me that his grandfather had died.
“What?” I asked, “How?”
My husband went on to explain that his mother had found his grandfather, still and cold, sitting in his favorite chair. His bed sat unmade, the kitchen light was on, and the TV — which was always dependably blasting as to be perceptible to his ears, which had been numbed from 30+ years of factory work — was silent.
The thing is, this shouldn’t have come as a shock. Though he was robust for his age, he was 90 — hardly an age at which the day of your death seems far off. But still, the news coming at me like this, when I hadn’t been expecting it in the least, threw me. And even now, several days later, I don’t know that I’ve fully come to terms with it.
And I think one of the reasons I am having such a hard time swallowing this news is the element of the unknown surrounding the whole thing. The fact that not only do we not know exactly what happened, but we almost certainly never will.
The wound from this experience still raw, I found myself even more able to empathize with Lena, the protagonist of this novel. Because, like me, she had suffered a loss in a way that left more questions than answers. Only, in her case, it was all the more shocking because the person she had lost wasn’t an elderly relative but instead her twin sister.
When Lena learned of her sister, Cambry’s, death, she wasn’t able to console herself with the cliched assurances that her twin had lived a good, long life. In fact, Cambry’s life had always been uncomfortably hectic, unreasonably unsettled.
At the time of her death, Cambry had been on the final leg of a cross-country journey. She had begged and borrowed and stole — often in the form of siphoned gas — but she had nearly made it. So neither Lena nor her parents could stomach the fact that Cambry had, purportedly, died by suicide after throwing herself off of Hairpin Bridge and onto the unforgiving rock below.
Driven by a need to know the full truth — and fueled by the fact that she thinks she knows some of it already — Lena goes to Hairpin Bridge to meet Officer Raycevic, the man who found her sister’s body.
But Hairpin Bridge rests on a desolate stretch of road. In going to this location, the site at which her sister took her last unsteady breaths, Lena puts herself in peril.
Lena’s fateful decision to risk everything in order to obtain the truth she needs to heal could be the worst choice she ever made. At Hairpin Bridge, help is well outside of yelling distance and, if Lena’s suspicions are correct, she may very well find herself in the same perilous situation from which her sister failed to escape.
From the moment I picked it up to the moment I closed the back cover, this novel had me absolutely enraptured. And, honestly, it’s hard to articulate why.
Maybe it was the fast pace.
Maybe it was the high stakes conflict.
Maybe it was the constantly renewed ambiguity regarding who the bad guy actually was.
Whatever the reason, this book was absolutely a thriller powerhouse.
Taylor Adams layered unreliable narration on a foundation of uncertainty, leaving his readers constantly feeling as if they couldn’t quite get solid footing. This allowed him to maintain the element of mystery ostensibly throughout the entire novel. Even the savviest of readers will find that they are constantly asking themselves what they know for certain and, after contemplation, deciding that the only thing they do know for sure is that they don't really know anything.
As in Adam’s breakout success, No Exit, the antagonist of this novel Was Michael Myers-esque in his ability to survive the unsurvivable.
At times, this seeming immortality made me cringe and shake my head in disbelief. Despite this, the plot worked for me. I was willing to suspend my disbelief and just enjoy this book as an escape — albeit a decidedly murder-y one.
I will admit, though, that those who are bothered by somewhat illogical — or at least improbable — occurrences might struggle with some components of this plot.
I plucked this book from my to-be-read pile — allowing it to cut the line — because I simply could not wait to read it. I approached it fervently hoping that it would provide the same unputdownable thrill-a-minute ride I enjoyed in the novel that put Adams on my radar, and I was not disappointed.
While this novel is fresh and new and hardly a rehashing of a previously used plot, it also provides readers a nearly identical experience as Taylor’s prior work. Hairpin Bridge contained similar shifting alliances and overall unsteady ground on which the plot was resting. It featured a similar feisty young woman trapped in an unenviable risky situation. It had a similar cut-off-from-society-you're-not-going-to-get-any-help-so-you-have-to-handle-this-shit-yourself setting.
With so many similar elements woven into a fresh, new tale, fans of No Exit will absolutely be satisfied with this second course from Taylor Adams.
This one earns an easy 5 out of 5 cocktails. While it is awfully early to be making such predictions, I could easily see this one nabbing a spot on our top 11 list!
So, I now know that I am a big fan of locked room mysteries - a subgenre that I didn’t even know was a thing until about a year or so ago. Do you like this type of mystery? If so, tell me about some of your favorites in the comments, below.
Okay. Time for a...romance, maybe? To follow along with my reading and drinking, subscribe to updates in the sidebar on the right and follow me on Goodreads.
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*I was provided a gifted copy of this title by the publisher*
