After We Fall

April 13, 2015
Flight attendant Cecilia Williams, one of four troubled people whose lives intersect in Kavanagh’s solid debut, has just abandoned her police detective husband, Tom Allison, and their two-year-old son, Ben, when bad weather causes the plane she’s on to crash soon after takeoff from Cardiff, Wales, into a mountain village. Cecilia is one of the few survivors. Meanwhile, Tom investigates the murder of Libby Hanover, retired police superintendent Jim Hanover’s grown daughter, and Freya, the young daughter of the pilot who died in the crash, tries to assuage the grief of her mother and grandparents. Kavanagh heightens the suspense by shifting among multiple points of view, though the anguish Cecilia goes through in reevaluating her life will strike some readers as melodramatic. Packed with high emotion, this novel about bad choices and vexed relationships reveals a born storyteller with room to grow. Agent: Camilla Wray, Darley Anderson Literary Agency (U.K.).

Always a joy to listen to, Jayne Entwistle rarely lets a listener down, but a thriller set in Wales is a tough challenge for a narrator who isn't Welsh--no matter how talented. A plane crashes, with a handful of survivors. In Cardiff, a retired policeman's daughter is found murdered. Told through the viewpoints of four characters, this mystery slowly reveals the connection between the two events. Entwistle's pace is a bit too measured and thoughtful, and the listener probably will have guessed the twist long before the end. But, overall, this is a satisfying listen if generosity is extended to an excellent narrator with a tough job to do. C.A.T. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine