GUNBARREL HIGHWAY
by Sean Bridges
Suspense / Thriller
Wild Rose Press
Pages: 264
Publication Date: November 20, 2024
SYNOPSIS
Texas trophy wife Claudia Grant dies after she causes an early morning car accident. In the other vehicle, Daniel Morrison, an attorney struggling with a pending divorce and pill addiction, panics and leaves the scene.
The victim’s husband, congressional candidate Hayden Grant, is a corrupt politician who seizes the opportunity and places a million-dollar reward on Morrison’s capture. Dead or alive.
Daniel is on the run. Roya Navarro, a determined San Antonio police detective, is hot on his trail with local law enforcement, county sheriffs, a hungry journalist, and trigger-happy citizens all across the Lone Star state out on the hunt for the bounty.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sean Bridges is an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Nicholl award-winning screenwriter and author. He’s a Stephen King Dollar Baby with his festival winning audio production of One for the Road.
His Audible Parade Productions created a serial audio thriller, Triple Six and are currently at work on their next horror/suspense audio series, Parasite Zero.
His latest screenplay, Beginner’s Luck is a 2024 award-winner at the SAFILM-San Antonio Film Festival and Austin Film Festival. He’s also worked on a number of projects for Troublemaker Studios out of Austin, TX. He lives and works in the Texas Hill Country.
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REVIEW
It took me a hot minute to get into Gunbarrel Highway. At first, it was the puzzlingly spicy opening scene (although it did explain Claudia Grant’s distracted driving quite nicely!) Daniel and his marriage going down the tubes, his boss riding his back, life is hard, poor me, and then BAM! Daniel makes one poor choice. Thunderous wreck. Dead woman. Is it Daniel’s fault? Then he makes another poor choice by fleeing the scene, thinking his previous actions will condemn him. And then it felt like Daniel chased his tail for a while, and I wondered if the book would really take off or not.
And then…it did.
Once the story grabbed me, it was a heck of a ride. Daniel careens from one bad option to the next, at first unaware that Claudia’s husband, congressional candidate Hayden Grant, has put a million-dollar bounty on the head of the man who killed his wife (never mind that Claudia’s actions contributed more to her death than Daniel’s did, Grant isn’t going to miss a chance to play for the sympathy vote). San Antonio detective Roya Navarro dogs Daniel’s trail, determined to bring him to justice. Daniel, just as determined to get across the border and away, drags unsuspecting Tricia into it when he carjacks her and makes her drive him toward his goal.
This book, y’all. Once that bounty was issued, Daniel had a big ol’ bullseye on his back. Who do you trust when you’re worth a lot of money to anyone who turns you in? Can you trust anyone? Will even Tricia be swayed by the lure of the reward? There were betrayals and mayhem aplenty, twists and turns and gasp-inducing moments to thrill the biggest adrenaline junkie.
Bridges also gives us interesting characters. Daniel and Tricia are the focus of the story, eventually forming a sort of friendship born of the strange circumstances in which they find themselves. Claudia remains a strong presence even though she shuffles off this mortal coil early on. Hayden Grant is a deliciously smarmy politician, the kind that just makes you want to wash your hands reading about him because he’s so oily and slick, and his longsuffering assistant John, well, I wonder how he even stands to be in the same room as Hayden. The crooked cop, the money-hungry trucker, Daniel’s own brother-in-law Ron, nobody is a throwaway character.
We’d like to think life would never happen this way outside the pages of a book. But in today’s world, it’s not that much of a stretch to conceive of people believing something outlandish just because they said it on TV. Would people betray each other for the promise of financial gain? People have betrayed each other for far less than a million dollars. Slimy politicians? We can all probably think of one or two that fit that description. So the story, while full of rock-em-sock-em excitement, isn’t so farfetched that it couldn’t happen. Perhaps this could serve not only as a thrill ride but also as a cautionary tale.
If you like a book you’ll barely breathe through from the time the turbo kicks in until the unexpected resolution and redemption arc, you need to read Gunbarrel Highway.
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