The locals call Hairpin Bridge haunted, an isolated span rarely traveled, as it serves "a dead highway" made obsolete by the interstate; it's a place where "space and time are malleable," where "past and present can intertwine a bit." Taylor Adams (No Exit) makes full use of this setting as he forcefully pumps believable suspense into the chilling Hairpin Bridge, his fourth novel.
The bridge's nickname, "suicide bridge," has brought Lena Nguyen here to investigate why her twin sister, Cambry, leapt to her death from this derelict overpass about 70 miles from Missoula, Mont. Lena doesn't believe her twin died by suicide, despite the official account of highway patrolman Raymond Raycevic, who meets her on the bridge. Raymond found Cambry's body about an hour after he stopped her for speeding. Much of Raymond's report doesn't add up. Although Cambry had been living in her car, she wasn't depressed, but rather on a "grand pilgrimage" across the country. As Lena's questions become more confrontational, she and Raymond face off, like gunslingers of the Old West.
Adams displays fierce skills at meting out tension that begins subtly but increases as the danger becomes real. That sense of menace is even more powerful as Hairpin Bridge essentially is just two people facing each other in the country. Raymond underestimates Lena, believing this petite, 24-year-old woman who earns a minimum wage in an electronics store poses no threat. The plot smoothly unfolds from the present to Lena's blog about the sisters and what might have led to Cambry's death. --Oline H. Cogdill, freelance reviewer