by Simone St. James
Release Date: March 5, 2024
2024 Berkley
Kindle ARC & Audiobook Editions; 341 Pages
ISBN: 978-0593200384
ASIN: B0C76XHYL8
Audiobook: B0CB99YKLY (9h10min)
Genre: Fiction / Mystery / Horror
Source: Review copy from publisher
3 / 5 Stars
Summary
July 1995. April and Eddie have taken a
wrong turn. They’re looking for the small resort town where they plan to
spend their honeymoon. When they spot what appears to be a lone
hitchhiker along the deserted road, they stop to help. But not long
after the hitchhiker gets into their car, they see the blood seeping
from her jacket and a truck barreling down Atticus Line after them.
When the hitchhiker dies at the local hospital, April and Eddie find themselves in the crosshairs of the Coldlake Falls police. Unexplained murders have been happening along Atticus Line for years and the cops finally have two witnesses who easily become their only suspects. As April and Eddie start to dig into the history of the town and that horrible stretch of road to clear their names, they soon learn that there is something supernatural at work, something that could not only tear the town and its dark secrets apart, but take April and Eddie down with it all.
When the hitchhiker dies at the local hospital, April and Eddie find themselves in the crosshairs of the Coldlake Falls police. Unexplained murders have been happening along Atticus Line for years and the cops finally have two witnesses who easily become their only suspects. As April and Eddie start to dig into the history of the town and that horrible stretch of road to clear their names, they soon learn that there is something supernatural at work, something that could not only tear the town and its dark secrets apart, but take April and Eddie down with it all.
My Thoughts
Murder Road had a lot of the elements that I enjoy in murder mysteries, but I was somewhat disappointed in this latest book by this author. When I first started reading this author, I loved the mix of mystery / suspense / paranormal that could be found in the books, and found them creepy and gripping.The book did start off rather strong for me so I was hopeful at first, but then it got bogged down towards the middle and I started to lose interest. And the thing is, it wasn't that the source material was uninteresting, I think it was the way it was presented.
Newlyweds Eddie and April are the main characters in this book and I did enjoy their backstories. Both of them had some struggles in their lives and I found their perceptions of current events based on their backgrounds to be quite interesting; the whole concept that we can never leave run away from who we were is a running theme throughout this book and we have to accept that those experiences have shaped us into the people who we are today. There were a lot of repetitive thoughts and concepts though, and I got tired of April reminding us how beautiful she was even though it wasn't important to her. Really? I think the author was hung up on this concept and used 'the beautiful woman must be lying because she is beautiful' thing to the point of nausea. There really couldn't be any other reason why the police officer thought April was lying? Of course it had to do with the fact she was beautiful and was hiding something. Eddie's story fascinated me more than April's simply because I am married to a vet and understand the impact PTSD and being posted overseas can have on someone. I personally don't think enough is done for our vets so I liked that story line very much. I am definitely biased in that regard.
The story itself was actually interesting, but I wish the author had included more of the paranormal element to it, something that was very much lacking in this book. I think I was expecting something much more creepy, something with much more of a twist, but I didn't get that. I don't mind the police procedural aspect of the book as I like that kind of thing, but something paranormal thrown in would have been so interesting. I mentioned that I lost interest about halfway through the book, but I think it was the writing style, not the material, that was the cause.
Verdict
Murder Road definitely had some interesting elements to it, and there were some themes running through it that I liked. None of these things were fully developed or used in such a way to create that creepiness factor that is necessary to this type of book. There was little to no twist; in fact, I felt like there wasn't much of a denouement at all. Overall, while I didn't hate it, I didn't really like it either. If you are interested in reading this author, I recommend The Broken Girls.
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