Final Toll — Roger Ormerod

The day Johnny gets out of Parkhurst Prison a truck driver offers him a lift. Johnny used to be a driver -- and that, together with Den's so-called masterplan to steal a load of Scotch -- was what put him in jail. The scam had gone badly wrong, but Johnny was the only one they'd caught, and he'd suffered for it. So when he discovers this truck is also carrying whisky, it seems the perfect revenge. Unthinking, he steals the rig and heads for Den, twisting and turning down narrow lanes, crossing the river at the deserted Prescott's Bridge ...

The narrow suspension bridge had been ahead of its time, but its time was 150 years ago. It buckles under the weight of the truck and Johnny is trapped, hanging in mid-air between two cliffs, buffeted by the raging storm; inches and ounces the only thing between him and certain death. Engineer Colin Marson is called in to direct an impossible rescue. Battling the elements, local bureaucrats and his own misgivings, he has to get the driver out alive before the bridge -- and the truck -- plummet into the swollen icy river below. And in his frantic race against time, Marson has one other piece of vital information: the cliffs from which the bridge is suspended are beginning to crumble ...