No Exit by Taylor Adams

 

⭐⭐⭐⭐✩

No Exit by Taylor Adams - 336 pages

On her way to Utah to see her dying mother, college student Darby Thorne gets caught in a fierce blizzard in the mountains of Colorado. With the roads impassable, she’s forced to wait out the storm at a remote highway rest stop. Inside are some vending machines, a coffee maker, and four complete strangers.

Desperate to find a signal to call home, Darby goes back out into the storm . . . and makes a horrifying discovery. In the back of the van parked next to her car, a little girl is locked in an animal crate.

Who is the child? Why has she been taken? And how can Darby save her?

There is no cell phone reception, no telephone, and no way out. One of her fellow travelers is a kidnapper. But which one?

Trapped in an increasingly dangerous situation, with a child’s life and her own on the line, Darby must find a way to break the girl out of the van and escape.

But who can she trust?

Honestly, at first I had a hard time getting into this book.  I couldn't get past the main character not trying to get the girl out of the van; instead she leaves her in there in a snowstorm to freeze.  But, I read the synopsis and knew that had to be the case so I just had to suck it up and read on.  Once the story got a goin' it was pretty good; not his best book but it was still a good read.  I liked the tenacity of Darby, and the author does a great job of painting Ashley out to be just plain evil.