I purchased this book for my own personal collection. I borrowed the audiobook from the library.
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark / Penguin Random House Audio
Published: June 22, 2021
Summary:
You can save hundreds of lives. Or the one that matters most.
A claustrophobic thriller set over twenty hours on one airplane flight, with the heart-stopping tension of The Last Flight and the wrenching emotional intensity of Room, Hostage takes us on board the inaugural nonstop flight from London to Sydney.
Mina is trying to focus on her job as a flight attendant, not the problems of her five-year-old daughter back home, or the fissures in her marriage. But the plane has barely taken off when Mina receives a chilling note from an anonymous passenger, someone intent on ensuring the plane never reaches its destination. Someone who needs Mina’s assistance and who knows exactly how to make her comply.
It’s twenty hours to landing. A lot can happen in twenty hours.
My thoughts:
I have been a fan of Clare Macintosh ever since reading her debut novel, I Let You Go. Since then I’ve read all her books, including her latest one, The Last Party, which is the start of her first ever series. Somehow however, I missed this one, so I made it a point to read it before her next book comes out…and I loved it!
This book is a locked-room mystery but on a plane! Can you even imagine? I like to fly, but I much prefer to drive whenever possible and now the very idea that something like this ever happening on a flight that I’m on gives me such anxiety. Of course, I already read the other thriller that was set on a plane, Falling by T.J. Newman, and that also gave me the same type of anxiety but I will say these books are very different, so if you have read one but not the other, don’t fall into the trap of thinking they are. Definitely read both…they are so worth it!
I loved the way this story was told, moving back and forth from multiple perspectives. Initially, it is told from Mina and Adam’s points of view, which really allows us to get to know them and understand what is going on in their lives, and more specifically their marriage. This plants a few seeds of doubt about their characters, which I loved and that comes into play a little later. Once on the plane, we start to get the points of view of some of the passengers and this is when things start to get a little intense.
This book, while slow at the beginning, eventually picks up pace and you do not want to put it down. It’s tense and suspenseful and has you wondering just what you would do the entire time. I loved that not only do you have the hostage situation going on onboard the plane, but there is the other situation going on at home and that is just as engaging. Of course, it’s hard to talk about anything in specifics without going into spoiler territory – just know this is a book that hooks you and keeps you guessing as to where it will ultimately wind up.
I loved that this book ended up touching on such a wide array of topics – topics I never expected when I first picked up the book. Climate change, adoption, marriage and family are just a few of the themes explored. If your book club reads thrillers, this book just might be a good one to select as there is a lot to unpack here.
Audio thoughts:
This book translates so well onto audio – and the narrator, Vinette Robinson, did a great job bringing the book to life. Her pacing and intonation were spot on and she infused just the right amount of tension and emotion into her voice as needed. This was one audiobook that I just could not put down and I loved every tense minute of it!
