DI Louise Blackwell is back in action in this slightly chilling thriller “The Bridge”. In the pervious book “The Pier” , we had seen that she was becoming closer to her partner and that she is helping her parents take care of her niece after the death of her sister.

It has been a couple of months since then and Blackwell finds that she is 10 weeks pregnant. This, in itself, makes her pretty apprehensive as this is her first pregnancy and she is about to enter into her 40s. Amidst her struggles with lethargy and morning sickness, Louise’s team is called upon to investigate a strange case of an unattended death in a storage container, that was scheduled to be shipped out of the country. The cramped space in the container and the cameras present in it point to a much more sinister reason other than that of an illegal immigration.

As Louise and her team continue to doggedly pursue a case where there are little to no leads, they get information of an additional two people who have been kidnapped, leading onto a high pressure investigation launched by the team, endeavoring to find the people alive by any and all means.

This is a fairly good follow-up to the previous book which I had enjoyed tremendously. The case is intriguing enough to hold the reader’s attention and twisted enough to impart certain chilling moments. The way DI Blackwell ‘s character has been developed is commendable; she has come a long way since we saw her last. I particularly loved the way the struggles of a working woman has been depicted; this only makes the character more flesh and blood.

However, the book lacked that edge- of- the- seat, fast- paced mood the previous book had. There are places where the pace becomes slightly dull and the narrative gets slightly disjointed. So, I can’t say I enjoyed this book as much as the previous one. I still would like to know what happens further in the detective’s life though.

This book gets 4 out of 5 stars.