The Incident on the Bridge
Multiple viewpoints provide an account of the disappearance and search for Thisbe Locke, who goes missing on a night she visits her former boyfriend. Angry because he dumped her for someone else, Thisbe tells no one where she’s going. Shifting perspectives include Thisbe’s sister; a boy who likes Thisbe; a boy who saw Thisbe on the bridge the night she disappeared; and several different law enforcement authorities. Snippets of each individual’s personal story and qualities of their character emerge as integral to the plot while the back-and-forth narratives reveal that they all have pieces of the puzzle without knowing it. As they gradually understand the significance of what they saw or know, the emerging picture transforms one kind of fear into another. At first the assumption is that Thisbe jumped from the bridge in a suicide. Eventually it becomes clear she’s been kidnapped. Thisbe’s perspective, too, is part of the story, as is that of the mentally ill, increasingly unstable man who’s taken her, his poignant, unsettling backstory revealing that he believes Thisbe is his sister, who died when he was a child. This increasingly tense thriller features two distinct and disparate sisters who connect when it matters most at the center of a story that underscores the importance of what we see and what we say in piecing together truth. ©2016 Cooperative Children's Book Center
CCBC Age Recommendation: Age 14 and older
Age Range:
Grades 9-12 (Age 14 and older)
Format:
Novel
Subjects:
Mysteries
Perspective/Point of View
Sisters
Diversity subject:
Physical Disability/Condition
Publisher:
Alfred A. Knopf
Publish Year: 2016
Pages: 326
ISBN: 9780375870798
CCBC Location: Fiction, McNeal