Reviews with content warning for Violence - Beneath Devil's Bridge

Fantastic!!! I really love the way the author moves from past to present (and POV). I thoroughly enjoyed this book and already have another book by the same author ready to read.

Content Warnings

ispellitaimee's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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aliteracja's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

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ids100's review

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dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

It began strong but steadily got worse in the second half. After learning the true crime that "inspired" the book, it's easy to understand why. To match the culprit(s) in real life, the story took several awkward and implausible turns. The final chapters then became sermons about school bulling, social responsibilities, how truth can set one free, and how Nobody's hands were clean.

... Except the podcaster whose reckless, undisciplined, and unethical reporting "revealed the truth". Everything and anything is justifiable in the name of truth-seeking. Never mind that her podcast doxxed people (before be sure about their culpability) and caused deaths, destruction, injuries, and kidnapping of children. She was applauded and thanked by everyone including those whose children hurt and whose lives ruined. THANKED. Seriously, even if they all deserved it, to think that (guilty) people would appreciate being doxxed or having their children harmed is absurd.

Even the one death she was definitely responsible, a nefarious gang-tie was introduced late in the game to absolve her.

The ending had all the principle players sitting around singing kumbaya and hugging each other. No one was in real trouble. Everyone was happy. The innocent children were hurt but not too badly. No lasting physical or psychological trauma because if there was even a hint of that we might question the wisdom of the real-time news reporting as entertainment.

It will be a much better book if the author stuck to dramatize the real life events or do a straight up nonfiction & do social commentaries to her heart's desire. But then she can't play the conscience, the "cleansing forest fire" of society, can she?

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poppyseedromance's review

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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kristaa_raae's review

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4.0

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smchoate's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

Overall, this book is exciting enough, and provided an enjoyable murder mystery that kept me entertained until the end. I thought the plot was pretty well done, with a few exceptions (see below); the dual timelines were also handled well enough, although it did make things awkward in some respects. However, the writing was not up to par for me, so that brought it down a lot in my view.

We follow two characters from a first-person perspective, in two timelines: First, we have Trinity, a true crime podcaster investigating a murder from 24 years before. Second, we have Rachel, the main detective on the case, whose story is told both in the present day and at the time of the investigation. There are also occasional chapters with an omniscient narrator that briefly explain the reactions of other characters in the town.

Right from the beginning, I was not impressed with the writing in this book. The dialogue was often quite awkward, and I often found myself thinking, "no one would speak like this." This awkwardness also spilled over into non-dialogue descriptions, since everything was written in the first person, so it should have been written in such a way that it could be believable as the characters' internal dialogue, which it wasn't (ex. "I find myself falling into myself and going quiet.").

Certain strange descriptions were very much overused, particularly in relation to time (I was so sick of hearing about "time stretching", and every time a photograph was mentioned, there was some cliche description about it being "frozen in time" or some such). Example: "Time elongates and shimmers." (What? I guess this is meant to indicate a tense silence, but very weird.)

In addition, there were WAY too many sentence breaks throughout, especially in the more suspenseful sections, which led to the writing feeling very choppy in parts. (Example: "I hesitate. Nod. And come to my feet." Why three separate sentences here???)

The dual timelines sometimes led to awkward sentences that served to situate us in the timeline, but were often repetitive or unrealistic as someone's internal dialogue (ex. "Or perhaps I'm just unwell after the long day yesterday that started with the autopsy and ended with my fight with Maddy.") And then there were some sentences that were just plain awkward. (Ex: "Pratima died two years ago. She choked on food in a restaurant. Perhaps it was because nothing was easy for her to swallow after their baby girl was brutally assaulted and killed." Yikes.)

The reason I kept reading was because I wanted to know what happened, and overall, the plot was worthwhile. I thought a very minor romantic subplot was unnecessary and poorly set up

(the romantic connection between Trinity and Gio, specifically. I felt I didn't know very much about Gio at all, and their whole connection (and, honestly, maybe his entire character?) felt pretty random and had nothing to do with the plot anyway)

. I also felt that the vibe of the very end was not realistic. I don't mean how the mystery itself was resolved, but the reactions of the characters to that ending.

It seemed overly optimistic to assume that all the townspeople involved would completely come around to Trinity and her project so suddenly, and that "the truth set them free" to such an extent that they were completely happy-go-lucky about the whole thing immediately after the podcast wrapped up.

Overall, this was a fine pick for Amazon First Reads, and I enjoyed it, but I probably wouldn't recommend it too strongly over other books, if that makes sense.

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