Note from the Blogger

These mini-reviews are intended to be short recommendations, not full blown literary reviews. Please feel free to add your own comments. -- Tim Drake

Saturday, October 15, 2016

Before The Fall (2016) By Noah Hawley

“They are flying. And as they rise up through the foggy white, talking and laughing, serenaded by the songs of 1950s crooners and the white noise of the long at bat, none of them has any idea that sixteen minutes from now their plane will crash into the sea.” That’s the closing sentence of the preface to Before The Fall by Noah Hawley. His book is easily the most riveting I’ve read in ages, and far from spoiling the suspense, the sentence merely sets the stage.

Hawley is not a stranger to writing for suspense. He’s a bestselling author who has penned four other novels: The Good Father, The Punch, Other People’s Weddings, and A Conspiracy of Tall Men. If you aren’t aware of that portfolio, try this one: he was the writer/producer of the television hit show Bones. He’s also the creator of Fargo, which won an Emmy for Outstanding Miniseries in 2014. Hawley knows both how to make you turn the page, and tune-in next week.

As the title implies, Before The Fall, is about the lives of the passengers and crew on a private jet which mysteriously crashes into the Atlantic as it is flying to NYC from Martha’s Vineyard. All but two will die in the crash; the survivors will be a less than successful painter, and JJ, a four year-old who is the son of the multi-millionaire television CEO whose company owns the jet. 

In telling their pre-flight stories and reporting on the investigation of the crash, Hawley’s book creates a thriller that includes high-finance international money-laundering, offshore bank accounts, political corruption, wire-tapping, the working dynamics of airline professionals, and the on & off-screen workings of editorial “news” programming of the Fox News variety.  

Recommendation:  If you are looking for something to take your mind off “real” news and maybe lower your anxiety level, look no further.