Critical Praise
“Flight attendant Cassie Bowden: a self-destructive alcoholic who favors one-night stands, a gifted liar, a petty thief. But she’s also someone we can relate to: a soul damaged during childhood, terribly alone, and desperate for love.... Readers who enjoyed the imperfect heroine in Paula Hawkins’s THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN and the anxiety-ridden paranoia of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s CRIME AND PUNISHMENT will be hooked by this murder mystery.”
—Library Journal (Starred Review)
“Bohjalian is an unfaltering storyteller who crosses genres with fluidity, from historical fiction to literary thrillers. He is also that rare male writer who has mastered the female point of view with adroit credibility, and he is nonjudgmental and sensitive in his portrayal of Cassie’s alcohol and sex addictions. As in previous novels…Bohjalian revisits the notion of what happens when an individual loses control of his or her environment in a read-in-one-sitting escapade that is as intellectually satisfying as it is emotionally entertaining.”
—Booklist (Starred Review)
“A turbulent behind-the-scenes look at the lives of cabin crew members and a pitiless profile of a woman destined for a psychological crash landing.... While structured as a thriller, the novel is strongest as a character study. Cassie is a hot, frighteningly believable mess, as endangered by alcoholism as by espionage. Bohjalian nails the floating loneliness that can affect flight crew members, and all business road warriors, amidst their untethered schedules; mixed with a splash of self-loathing it can lead to a life on the rocks.”
—Passport Magazine (April’s Book of the Month)
“Here’s a milestone: Bohjalian is publishing his 20th novel, and as always it combines popular tropes with a serious examination of social issues. Binge-drinking flight attendant Cassandra Bowden wakes up with another bad hangover in a Dubai hotel room and finds the man she spent the night with lying dead beside her. She flees, lying her way from the ride to the airport through the flight to Paris to her encounter with FBI agents at flight’s end. What really happened? And what are the consequences of addiction, deception, and denial? Fans are lining up.”
—Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal
“Exciting... Bohjalian’s fans will have fun.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Between Elmore Leonard’s RUM PUNCH and the Air France cocaine scandals, you would think flight attendants would be staple of crime fiction. What better profession for a story about a man/woman on the run, caught up in international intrigue? And yet their appearances in the canon are few and far between. Thankfully, suspense master Chris Bohjalian is on the beat with this year’s new release, about a hard-living airline employee who wakes up in Dubai next to a dead body and has to piece together the sordid story.”
—Literary Hub
