The one time that an attempt is made to follow another person’s footprints, the results are inconclusive. Darby realizes that every move made outdoors will leave tracks in the snow, but the few instances where those tracks should have given someone away go unnoticed. For a storm repeatedly referred to as “Snowmageddon,” I expected the weather to play a major role in this story. I wish that distinction had been more clear from the synopsis, but I was willing to adjust. There is little to no mystery here, though there is plenty of suspense. Instead I found the “who” established early on (though not quite as straightforwardly as Darby at first assumes) and the “why” almost completely irrelevant. It began with a misconception about the premise- I expected Darby’s rescue attempts to parallel a whodunnit mystery not knowing which of the strangers posed the greatest threat was a big part of No Exit‘s appeal for me. This was a challenging read for me right from the beginning. She would later look back on this mindless decision many times, and wonder how differently her night might’ve played out if she’d merely retraced Ashley’s footprints instead.” “On her way, she chose to circle through the parking lot, around this small collection of trapped cars. With the roads closed for the night, no cell service, and no idea which of the strangers inside she can trust, Darby fights to save the kidnapped child as the rest stop environment- both inside and out- grows more dangerous. She sees three other vehicles in the parking lot and four people inside and then she finds a child locked in a pet cage in the back of the van next to her car.

When she gets caught in a blizzard at high altitude and worries her car won’t make it much farther through the snow, she is forced to pull into a rest stop. In the novel, a college student is racing home through the Rockies to see her mother, who has just been diagnosed with a late-stage cancer and doesn’t have much time left. But last weekend was blizzard weather for me again, which seemed like the perfect chance to finally pick this one up. Taylor Adams’s No Exit is certainly a seasonal thriller, and now that we’re well into March I knew I was cutting it a bit close.

No Exit by Taylor Adams