The Last Flight

April 1, 2020
Two women risk everything to leave their troubled lives behind. In just a week, Claire Cook's husband, Rory, will announce his campaign to be a U.S. senator from New York. No surprise there, since his family is chock full of high-profile politicians. As Rory's wife, the poised and beautiful Claire seems to lead a charmed life, but it's getting harder to hide the bruises under a carefully cultivated veneer of elegance. Claire tried to leave him once, an attempt that ended with cracked ribs. But this time, she's ready. She's been squirreling away cash, she's secured a fake ID and passport, and a trip to Detroit will provide the perfect opportunity to make her escape. However, before Claire leaves for the airport, Rory decides to send her to Puerto Rico to meet with a humanitarian group instead of going to Detroit. Even worse, Rory goes to Detroit in her place and intercepts the package containing her cash and papers. At JFK, Claire, seemingly by chance, meets Eva, a grieving woman looking to make a new start after her husband's death. Claire suggests that Eva take her flight to Puerto Rico, and Claire will head to Eva's home in Berkeley, where she'll attempt to slip into Eva's life. After touching down, Claire learns that Eva's plane crashed and Claire is presumed dead, but she's not out of the woods yet. Claire cleverly set up a way to keep track of Rory's messages to his head honcho, and when evidence suggests that Eva might not have actually been on that doomed plane, Claire's plans take on a new urgency and it's revealed that Eva's story masked a dark truth. Propulsive prose drives Clark's tale of the intersecting lives of these two smart and resourceful women, and emphasis is placed on the importance of female friendship and support. Readers will surely find themselves hopelessly invested in Claire's and Eva's ultimate fates. A tense and engaging womancentric thriller.

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Starred review from April 6, 2020
In this outstanding thriller from Clark (The Ones We Choose), New York socialite Clair Cook, who has a plan to run away from her emotionally and physically abusive husband, and Eva James, a woman heading home to Berkeley, Calif., who says she’s mourning her late husband, meet by chance at an airport bar at JFK before their flights. Claire tells Eva that she would do anything not to go to Puerto Rico, where her husband is expecting her. Eva agrees to fly to Puerto Rico in Claire’s place, and the two swap e-tickets and phones. On arrival at Oakland’s airport, Claire learns that the Puerto Rico flight has crashed, killing everyone aboard. Though she’s devastated that Eva has died in the crash, Claire takes the opportunity to assume the life Eva left behind only to discover that Eva was not who she said she was and was fleeing her own dangerous past. The moral dilemmas that the multifaceted, realistic characters face in their quest for survival lend weight to this pulse-pounding tale of suspense. Clark is definitely a writer to watch. Agent: Mollie Glick, Creative Artists Agency.

May 15, 2020

Claire Cook is a smart, sophisticated woman who has married into political royalty. Her life becomes an endless schedule of meetings and "handling," she's no longer able to make her own choices, and she must act the perfect wife and hostess. The world doesn't know that her husband has a deep anger focused on Claire and that he controls her every move. She plots an escape, but her carefully laid plans go awry. In an airport lounge, she meets another desperate woman named Eva. The two women decide to take one last gamble and switch flights: Claire will go to Oakland; Eva will go to Puerto Rico. But when the flight to Puerto Rico goes down, Claire realizes that Eva was not at all who she claimed to be and that Claire is still in just as much danger as she was before. Narrated by both Eva and Claire, the story moves to the past to see how these women came to their ultimate destinations. VERDICT Clark (The Ones We Choose) is an exceptional writer who has crafted a tale about disappearing in an age when technology makes it almost impossible. Highly recommended for fans of thrillers, mysteries, and crime fiction.--Jennifer Funk, McKendree Univ. Lib., Lebanon, IL

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