Layover

May 1, 2019
An airport meet-cute goes south in Bell's (Somebody I Used to Know, 2018, etc.) new thriller. Poor Joshua Fields. All he does is travel for his job as a real estate developer with his father's company. He's tired, bored, and ready to settle down. Enter Morgan Reynolds. After meeting Joshua at an airport gift shop in Atlanta, she agrees to get a drink with him. Who is this tall, ridiculously beautiful woman in the hat and giant sunglasses? Joshua plans to find out. After a drink and a bit of conversation, Joshua is properly starry-eyed, and when Morgan plants a passionate kiss on him, he's truly a goner. So, it's a bummer when she firmly tells him she has to go and that they won't be seeing each other again. Most people would count the experience as an oddity and get on with their lives, but not our Joshua. He throws caution to the wind and changes his flight, but Morgan pretends not to know Joshua when he confronts her on the plane, making him feel like an "aggressive creep, a stalker, a weirdo." Well, if the shoe fits. When he touches down in Nashville, Joshua sees Morgan's face on TV, and when he looks her up on Facebook, he's stunned to see a post headlined "Have You Seen Morgan? Missing Person." After telling his story to the airport police, he decides that Morgan surely needs his help and sets off to find her. Meanwhile, in Laurel Falls, Kentucky, Detective Kimberly Givens is on the hunt for Giles Caldwell, a prominent local businessman who has disappeared, and the trail leads to Morgan Reynolds. Nearly everyone involved in this paper-thin thriller, with the exception of Detective Givens, seems to be suffering from an alarming lack of common sense, and they're not nearly interesting enough to make up for it. Bell makes a lot of hay over Joshua's need to break free of his everyday grind, but that doesn't excuse his going to such great lengths to follow a woman after she repeatedly brushes him off. Readers desperately hoping to be rewarded with a few shocking revelations upon reaching the end of this dull cat-and-mouse game will be disappointed. This flight never gets off the ground. Hopefully Bell will return to form next time.

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May 27, 2019
Frequent business traveler Joshua Fields, the nice guy narrator of this fast-paced thriller from Bell (Somebody’s Daughter), is in the Atlanta airport when he bumps into an attractive woman, Morgan Reynolds, who, after a second encounter, agrees to join him for a drink while they wait for their respective flights. They sit down in a bar, where Joshua immediately feels close to the obviously troubled Morgan. On parting, she gives him a passionate kiss, but warns that “we’re never going to see each other again.” In Kentucky, Det. Kimberly Givens struggles to resolve two missing persons’ cases. When one victim turns up at an abandoned family amusement park, the police focus their hunt on finding Morgan, who they suspect of killing the person found in the amusement park. Meanwhile, Joshua, who’s dissatisfied with his mundane home life and job, pursues Morgan across the country. As the suspense grows, the question remains: is she guilty of murder or just a damsel in distress? Bell keeps the reader guessing whodunit until the end. Fans of romantic sentimental thrillers will find a lot to like. Agent: Massie & McQuilkin.

August 2, 2019

On a layover in Atlanta, Joshua Fields meets Morgan Reynolds, and his life changes. They have drinks at an airport bar and a deep parting kiss that spurs him to scrap his plans to travel to Tampa to close a commercial real estate deal for his father's company. Instead, he tries to follow Morgan, who turns out to be a missing person wanted by police in connection with the disappearance of Giles Caldwell, a prominent citizen in a small Kentucky town and CEO of the tech company where Morgan once worked. Joshua, who takes Xanax to alleviate his fear of flying, is ready for a change, especially after pouring out his heart to Morgan. And Morgan is a catalyst for that change, but he needs the truth from her before making a commitment. VERDICT Bell (Somebody's Daughter) is a reliable author in the psychological thriller category. He takes his well-drawn characters on a twisty trail in their search for the elusive truth, which here comes with an unexpectedly comforting conclusion.--Michele Leber, Arlington, VA

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2019
It starts with a chance encounter in an airport terminal. Joshua Fields meets a woman named Morgan in a gift shop; soon they are having a drink in a bar while each is waiting for their flight. As they are parting, Morgan gives Joshua a passionate kiss goodbye. Now he's hooked. When he later learns that she has been reported missing, he throws aside all his job responsibilities and searches for her. Of course, nothing is as it seems, and, when he learns the truth, he will wish that he had not gone after her at all. It takes a leap of faith to believe Joshua would abandon everything in an attempt to find a woman he hardly knows, but once that leap has been made, readers will find themselves thoroughly immersed in this riveting thriller. The why behind it all turns out to be both compelling and surprising. A perfect book to read on a long flight.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)