Exit Row

March 1, 2016
We meet Fiona Reina, the heroine of this fascinating and frustrating novel, as she's standing in the arrivals area of New York's tiny Islip-MacArthur terminal, waiting for her lover. Passengers on the jet from Denver deplane, but he isn't among them. She finds three others waiting in vain, and when their inquiries get them nowhere, they form an unlikely investigative team, determined to discover how people can disappear like smoke. Their persistence leads three of them to a tiny feeder airline in New Mexico, whereupon an unfortunate dissipation of tension occurs. The three join barroom sing-alongs, slurp pina coladas, carelessly lose a key document, fall for mountebanks whom readers can see through at once, and are all but wiped out. Readers impatient to learn the story's secrets may feel they've been in the dark too long, but it would be too bad if they lost interest. Author Culbertson conjures a slam-bang finale that manages to be both violent and touching and that almost explains how the mysterious disappearances were managed and the whole scam was supposed to work. A fine thriller with a slow bridge.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)