She Treads Softly: The Last Flight

Sunday, May 31, 2020

The Last Flight

The Last Flight by Julie Clark
Sourcebooks: 6/23/20

eBook review copy; 320 pages

The Last Flight by Julie Clark is a highly recommended novel of suspense.

Claire Cook is married to a powerful man whose family is part of a political dynasty. From the outside she is living a life of wealth and privilege, but away from the public view her husband is a controlling man with a violent temper. She has the bruises, physical and mental, to prove his abuse. He or his staff control her every move. Claire has been working for months on a plan to escape and the end is in sight when her husband suddenly changes her agenda. She is now going to meet with a humanitarian group in Puerto Rico. Sitting at the airport waiting to board her flight, she knows this change means he will now discover her escape plan and make her pay for it.

Eva James meets Claire at an airport bar at JFK before their flights. Eva tells Claire that she is mourning her late husband and heading home to Berkeley, California. Neither woman wants to board her flight and they make the last minute decision to switch tickets. They both feel this will give them lead time in starting over in a new life. Unknown to Claire, Eva had her own secrets from which she needed to escape so switching identities will help both women. When the flight to Puerto Rico goes down, Claire realizes that she can start a new life and assume Eva's identity.

The story alternates between the point-of-view of both Claire and Eva. After the Puerto Rico flight, Eva's story starts 6 months before the ticket swap and explains why she really wants to escape to a new life. Claire's narrative follows her as she assumes Eva's identity and tries to start her new life. Both narratives are equally compelling and interesting and both women are well-developed, complicated, realistic characters. You will be invested in the story of both women and they will capture your empathy as you follow their separate stories and timelines.

There are twists and surprises along the way that I don't want to spoil. There were a few parts that required me to suspend any disbelief, but it was worth it. What you need to know is that the writing is excellent, the tension is palpable, and the pace is fast - all of which point to a high recommendation to read The Last Flight.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Sourcebooks.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.