No Exit

Taylor Adams is an American thriller writer from Washington state who built his reputation on fast-paced, high-concept suspense novels that read like crackling paperback nail-biters. His 2017 novel, No Exit, is his most popular book, and it was adapted into a Hulu-original film.

Darby Thorne, a college student racing through a Colorado blizzard, is stranded overnight at a remote highway rest stop with four strangers. The setup is pure pulp gold complete with an isolated location, rising dread, and the sense that any of the snow-trapped travelers could be dangerous. Adams detonates the plot with one hell of a hook: Darby spots a kidnapped child locked in a van outside. No phone service. No escape. Someone inside the rest stop with her is a monster.

Adams writes with the smooth readability of a seasoned paperback pro. The chapters are short, the cliffhangers brutal, and the violence is gruesome and intense. Darby herself is a terrific modern pulp heroine: resourceful, scared, stubborn, and willing to take a beating to do what’s right. Fans of stories where a lone hero takes on overwhelming odds will eat this up.

No Exit is the kind of lean, high-concept thriller that would’ve sat nicely beside the old Richard Matheson or Day Keene paperbacks, but with a contemporary cinematic punch. The novel is a white-knuckle, snowbound thriller that reads like a classic Gold Medal paperback dragged into the 21st century. Adams gives us an ordinary protagonist shoved into an impossible situation and forced to improvise her way to survival. If you like your suspense tight, your villains vicious, and your heroes forged under fire, this one delivers the goods.

Get the book HERE.