While long, lonely roads stretching on through the woods can make for a lovely drive during the day, at night the experience of them can be much eerier. Who hasn’t found themselves on one after dark only to find their mind wandering to the variety of urban legends stored within? Of course, there are plenty of more realistic threats to our safety to worry about too, like slippery roads or downed trees. Driving to her parents’ house that is exactly what Ellie encounters, smashing into a tree headfirst to avoid a woman she thought she saw standing in the road. Her situation only worsens when another driver, Henry, doesn’t see her car until it’s too late and rear ends it.

Seemingly stranded in the middle of nowhere, with no cell service, a storm raging, and the sky glowing an otherworldly red, the duo set off in search of help and come upon a ramshackle roadside pub. Upon entry they discover the interior to be recently remodeled, with the friendly owner manning the bar and a suspiciously quiet patron the only other person inside. Neither has a car or a working phone, so Ellie and Henry decide to wait out the storm. When additional crash victims begin to appear, the sense that something is deeply amiss grows deeper and deeper. It’s clear the bartender knows something and they may need to find out what it is if there is any hope of surviving the night.

The set-up is effectively unnerving, immediately hooking the reader as Armstrong drops breadcrumbs leading us toward answers, some of which are easier to guess than others. Characterization is pretty thin on the ground, dialogue is sometimes clunky, and there are more than a few stunningly stupid decisions made, but enough is learned about most to lend the appropriate emotional heft to key moments and help us overlook bad choices.

Armstrong milks the pulpy premise for maximum suspense and a surprising amount of psychological depth. It’s rare for such a fun read to probe so many resonant issues and ponder such big questions, but Dive Bar does so admirably, if not always entirely successfully. Packed with nightmares of both the micro and macro variety, this lingers, leaving the reader to ponder who decides which lives are worth saving, and whether anyone should have the power to do so. ★★★½