401 pages
English language
Published Jan. 1, 2016 by Grand Central Publishing.
On a foggy summer night, 11 people - 10 privileged, one down-on-his-luck painter - depart Martha's Vineyard on a private jet headed for New York. Sixteen minutes later the unthinkable happens: The plane plunges into the ocean. The only survivors are Scott Burroughs - the painter - and a four-year-old boy who is now the last remaining member of an immensely wealthy and powerful media mogul's family.
With chapters weaving between the aftermath of the crash and the backstories of the passengers and crew members - including a Wall Street titan and his wife, a Texan-born party boy just in from London, a young woman questioning her path in life, and a career pilot - the mystery surrounding the tragedy heightens. As the passengers' intrigues unravel, odd coincidences point to a conspiracy. Was it merely by dumb chance that so many influential people perished? Or was something far more sinister …
On a foggy summer night, 11 people - 10 privileged, one down-on-his-luck painter - depart Martha's Vineyard on a private jet headed for New York. Sixteen minutes later the unthinkable happens: The plane plunges into the ocean. The only survivors are Scott Burroughs - the painter - and a four-year-old boy who is now the last remaining member of an immensely wealthy and powerful media mogul's family.
With chapters weaving between the aftermath of the crash and the backstories of the passengers and crew members - including a Wall Street titan and his wife, a Texan-born party boy just in from London, a young woman questioning her path in life, and a career pilot - the mystery surrounding the tragedy heightens. As the passengers' intrigues unravel, odd coincidences point to a conspiracy. Was it merely by dumb chance that so many influential people perished? Or was something far more sinister at work? Events soon threaten to spiral out of control in an escalating storm of media outrage and accusations. And while Scott struggles to cope with fame that borders on notoriety, the authorities scramble to salvage the truth from the wreckage.
Amid pulse-quickening suspense, the fragile relationship between Scott and the young boy glows at the heart of this stunning novel, raising questions of fate, human nature, and the inextricable ties that bind us together.
I got hooked I’ll admit, because I wanted to know what happens, and it was mindless enough to be restful to read but im looking forward to reading a book at some point in which the plot doesn’t hinge on sexual assault.
If misogyny and two dimensional characters are your jam, then you'll gobble this book up!
Seriously, I think a lot of people who read it will enjoy it because it has a good premise and is a page-turner.
My issue(s) with it: the characters aren't very complex. The bad guys are all bad, with no real redeeming qualities (unlike real life, where even serial killers usually have SOMETHING that keeps us from spotting them a mile away). And in an effort to paint the bad guys as bad, the author layers in a heavy dose of misogyny, including a reference to one woman "painting the town red with menstrual blood." Charming.
It feels like the author had a fun idea, was able to construct a story and write reasonably well, but fell into a trap when it came to character development.
