Stephanie Jane reviewed Above the Bridge by Deborah Garner
An engaging light mystery
3 stars
I read a later book in this series, Hutchins Creek Cache, as part of a blog tour in 2016, promptly bought this first in the series as a result and then forgot all about reading it until now. Oops! To be honest, I think if I had read Above The Bridge first I probably would not have continued further into the series though. The aspects I appreciated in the later book - such as the small town community vibe - aren't particularly in evidence yet because our intrepid journalist, Paige, believes she is only passing through the town so the connections she makes are more to do with extracting information from the locals rather than making friends. The romance hinted at in the synopsis is very understated and such a slow burn that I did wonder if they would ever even speak to each other!
There's an odd time-slip idea …
I read a later book in this series, Hutchins Creek Cache, as part of a blog tour in 2016, promptly bought this first in the series as a result and then forgot all about reading it until now. Oops! To be honest, I think if I had read Above The Bridge first I probably would not have continued further into the series though. The aspects I appreciated in the later book - such as the small town community vibe - aren't particularly in evidence yet because our intrepid journalist, Paige, believes she is only passing through the town so the connections she makes are more to do with extracting information from the locals rather than making friends. The romance hinted at in the synopsis is very understated and such a slow burn that I did wonder if they would ever even speak to each other!
There's an odd time-slip idea which I wish had actually been explained. Garner obviously did a lot of historical research at Jackson Hole because this novel is peppered with facts and figures. It was interesting for me to learn about white settlement in Wyoming in the early 1900s and the device of Paige seeing the early town at first hand was fun, although I wanted to know how and why this happened. I especially wanted to see how she explained her resulting knowledge to Jake and I thought this was glossed over too easily. The involvement of other more nefarious characters is also left as a mystery and not in a 'to be continued' kind of way. It just felt to me as though this had been overlooked. On the whole, Above The Bridge is an engaging light mystery which I did enjoy reading, but I felt too many aspects were left hanging for it to be truly satisfying.