Death at Devil's Bridge

Devil's Bridge #2

by Cynthia C. DeFelice

The sequel to Devil's Bridge

At thirteen, Ben Daggett, a Martha's Vineyard local, takes a summer job as first mate on a charter boat and plans to spend the July Fourth weekend helping to entertain tourists. On his first day out, Ben spots a strange object in the water -- a red Porsche. Then he learns that the driver is missing! Donny, a cool sixteen-year-old, admits to having submerged the car -- but nothing more. Also a native, Donny resents the rich tourists, and even steals from them. Despite Donny's transgressions, Ben would give anything to hang out with him. Unfortunately, he gives too much, and ends up involved in drug dealing and maybe murder, and with full understanding of Donny's role in at least one of these crimes. Should he tell on Donny? In Cynthia DeFelice's exciting new adventure novel, the hero faces up to his own weakness and struggles to decide what to do about his friend.

Genres: Mystery, Adventure

192 pages, Hardcover

Published August 28, 2000

About the author

Cynthia DeFelice is the author of many bestselling titles for young readers, including the novels Wild Life, The Ghost of Cutler Creek, Signal, and The Missing Manatee, as well as the picture books, One Potato, Two Potato, and Casey in the Bath. Her books have been nominated for an Edgar Allen Poe Award and listed as American Library Association Notable Children's Books and Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year, among numerous other honors.

Cynthia was born in Philadelphia in 1951. As a child, she was always reading. Summer vacations began with a trip to the bookstore, where she and her sister and brothers were allowed to pick out books for their summer reading. “To me,” she says, “those trips to the bookstore were even better than the rare occasions when we were given a quarter and turned loose at the penny-candy store on the boardwalk.” Cynthia has worked as a bookseller, a barn painter, a storyteller, and a school librarian.

When asked what she loves best about being an author, she can’t pick just one answer: “I love the feeling of being caught up in the lives of the characters I am writing about. I enjoy the challenge of trying to write as honestly as I can, and I find enormous satisfaction in hearing from readers that something I wrote touched them, delighted them, made them shiver with fear or shake with laughter, or think about something new.” Cynthia and her husband live in Geneva, New York.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/cynthi...

Reviews

[Josh]

I read a book called “Death at Devil's Bridge” by Cynthia DeFelice, which is about a 13 year old named Ben Daggett who took a summer job as first mate on a charter boat. On Ben's first day out on the job he spots something mysterious in the water, it was a red Porsche. Ben learns that the driver of the car was missing. A cool 16 year old, who is native to the town, named Donny admits to submerging the car because he thought it was a good joke. Donny despites the tourists in his town and he knew that the car was a tourist’s so he decided to push it in. Donny hates the tourists so much that he even steals from them. Even though Donny is a bad kid Ben would do anything to be friends with him. Ben and his friend Jeff end up doing too much to be friends with him and gets involved with selling drugs and possibly a murder. Ben knows that Donny was involved in at least one of these things so he debates whether he should tell the police.
Cynthia Defelice uses symbolism throughout the book to put emphasis on things. From the beginning of the book, the author talked about a boat that Ben and Jeff had always wanted to buy. The author uses the boat to symbolize their friendship and how important it is, anytime the kids are in a bad situation they think about the boat and that allows them to relax and find a way to solve the issue they have. Cynthia DeFelice symbolizes Donny's Tomahawk, his car, as something which bad things are related to. If Donny brings up something dangerous or possibly even illegal, Cynthia uses him riding in his Tomahawk as foreshadowing to something bad that is going to happen. Cynthia used symbolism very well to help provide a deeper meaning to the book.
Cynthia uses imagery multiple times throughout the book to give you a better picture of what is happening in the book in your mind, which will help you get more involved in the book. Cynthia uses imagery to describe Donny's car as Ben sees it driving towards him. “ it was an old blue Pontiac LeMans- at least it started out blue. Now it's dented side panels were covered with body filler and primer paint in all kinds of colors. Actually, I thought, you’d have to say that the car was mainly silver, from the dull gleam of duct tape, which is plastered everywhere and which, I figured, was what mostly held the car together.” (Pg 14-15) This quote helps the reader get a picture of the car that is talked about all the time in this book, so that you know what Ben is seeing when the car pulls up. Cynthia also uses imagery when talking about some of the customers Ben is chartering for the day. “Thad and Jay had pale white faces and hands, and their skin was smooth and soft looking.” (Pg 91) This imagery was used in a great place and helps the readers get more interested in the book and it helps them be able to play the situation out in their head while they are reading the book.
In conclusion I enjoyed this book and I liked the amount of action and suspense that was involved in the book. It helped make the book more fun and helped me to read the book because I didn’t feel like I was being forced to read it, I was just enjoying reading it. I would recommend this book to someone who likes a mystery book because this book had a great amount of moments where you don’t know what happened or who did something and it keeps you on the edge of your seat.

[Lundyn Jackson · Rating 3 out of 5]

DNF'd for like 2 years and finally finished it lol

[Leah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just started to read this book and its pretty good so far because I am on page 12. This book is about a girl named Frances who is 12 years old and her father who dies by a bullet to the head. Frances takes a train to Chicago to her aunt. Instead what she heard little about hoboes, she decides to crash her ticket and buy some boy clothes and cuts her hair. She now calls herself Frankie, but she realizes the perspective of a hobo, its language, and its society.

[Hailey Vaughn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book really interesting but there were some parts I didn't like. I enjoy reading mystery books that keep you wanting to read it. This book kept me wanting to read it because there was a lot of peer pressure happening, and there was a lot of suspense and dangerous situations. For example when Donny tries to get Ben to try the drugs and when Ben found the sunken car in the lake. Ben was just expecting to have a fun summer but it all changed when he found the car.

[Sylvia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Boy makes the wrong friends and ends up getting in trouoble.

[Griselda Saucedo · Rating 5 out of 5]

loved it