Before the Fall
Noah Hawley
2016, 320 pages
Thriller (Fiction)
On a foggy but calm night, a plane carrying 11 people takes off from Martha’s Vineyard. When it crashes into the ocean 16 minutes later, Scott Burroughs – a down-on-his-luck painter – and 4-year-old JJ, the son of the plane’s multimillionaire owners, are the only two to survive. As the media gathers to publicize their story, coincidences begin to pile up, and questions start swirling. How could a plane crash on a calm night when nothing was wrong?
Noah Hawley is the Golden Globe award-winning creator of the TV show Fargo, and his writing reflects that. The book is structured in alternating chapters, capturing each character’s backstory and then racing forward to the plane crash and after. The pacing is cinematic, and the story would make an excellent TV series. The ending, however, was weaker than the story deserved. Very abruptly after the climax of the plot, Hawley ends the novel, leaving the reader dangling. Overall, this was an entertaining read marred only by the ending.
Nora CascaddenConcord Public Library
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