Before the Fall
The year's best suspense novel
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4.0 • 37 Ratings
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- £5.49
Publisher Description
Winner of the 2017 Edgar Award for Best Novel
Selected by The Sunday Times as one of the top page-turners of summer 2017
FROM THE CREATOR OF THE AWARD WINNING FARGO AND LEGION TV SERIES
'Hawley's sublime prose glows on every page in this literary thriller of the highest quality' Daily Mail
THE RICH ARE DIFFERENT. BUT FATE IS BLIND.
A private jet plunges into the sea.
The only survivors are down-on his luck artist Scott Burroughs and JJ Bateman, the four year old son of a super-rich TV executive.
For saving the boy, Scott is suddenly a hero.
And then, as the official investigation is rapidly overtaken by a media frenzy, it seems he may also be a villain.
Why was he on the plane in the first place, and why did it crash?
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Noah Hawley—the writer and producer behind the hit TV show Fargo—really understands how to set a scene and ratchet up tension. His spectacularly suspenseful thriller begins with a private plane crashing off the Long Island coastline, then weaves craftily between past and present to paint a picture of the passengers onboard. Only two people survive the wreckage: the four-year-old son of a media mogul and the stoic painter who ferries him to safety, only to be sucked into a whirlpool of suspicion. With its intriguing characters and jarring twists, Before the Fall is an A+ read.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Emmy-, Golden Globe , and Peabody Award winning television producer and screenwriter Hawley's fifth novel is a masterly blend of mystery, suspense, tragedy, and shameful media hype. When a corporate jet carrying 11 crashes into the ocean just 16 minutes into a nighttime flight from Martha's Vineyard to New York in August 2015, only two people survive Scott Burroughs, a middle-aged former drunk and minor artist, and a four-year-old boy. Scott saves the boy, swimming to shore and into a frenzy of media-shaped hero worship, federal investigations of terrorism and criminal activity, and sudden media-driven accusations of financial exploitation. Hawley cleverly uses flashback chapters for each of the passengers to reveal that one victim was a wealthy mogul, head of a 24-hour cable news network that didn't just report the news, but proudly manufactured it; one victim was a Wall Street financier about to be indicted for money laundering; and the other victims, including an armed bodyguard, also had curious pasts. Scott's life is an escalating nightmare of media hounding and federal suspicion. His only salvation is a thoughtful, deliberate NTSB investigator who focuses on facts, not speculation. This is a gritty tale of a man overwhelmed by unwelcome notoriety, with a stunning, thoroughly satisfying conclusion.
Customer Reviews
Raising a Flag
A moving, empathetic novel that is essentially about the power of the media - in the hands of a corrupt and ambitious (read ruthless) mogul - to destroy lives.
Before the Fall
Simple story overly padded out.
No prizes for guessing the ending
The writing style had flow and I liked the way the characters were revealed to you but it was very predictable and choppy. I had to keep referring back to the list of characters. Not a great read, but one for the train. Really not a plane read, obviously!