Freefall

October 29, 2018
In the pseudonymous Barry’s uneven debut, Maggie Carpenter, who lives in Owl Creek, Maine, is alarmed to learn from the news that her estranged daughter, Allison, has gone missing following the crash of a private plane in the Colorado Rockies. Media identify the pilot as Allison’s fiancé, Ben Gardner, the CEO of a major pharmaceutical company, though Maggie hadn’t even known her daughter was engaged. Everyone insists that Allison is dead, but Maggie becomes obsessed with retracing her daughter’s steps from the last two years. Soon, everything Maggie thought she knew about her daughter falls away, and she discovers a world of money, power, and deception that implicates everyone from the FDA to those closer to home. Meanwhile, Allison, who somehow survived the plane crash, battles hunger, exhaustion, and injury in the Colorado wilderness. Barry’s meditations on mother-daughter relationships and female roles add much-needed dimension to an otherwise shallow plot full of predictable twists and surface-level emotion. Still, this psychological thriller is perfect for fans of Liane Moriarty and Claire Mackintosh. Agent: Alexandra Machinist, ICM.

Karissa Vacker, as Allison, commands our attention from her first words. After a private plane crashes into a mountainside in Colorado, Allison awakens to find the pilot dead and her instincts on high alert. With the skill of one familiar with the outdoors, she gathers whatever supplies she can and flees the crash site. We sense she's running from something, but what? Enter narrator MacLeod Andrews, menacing and devious as The Man. As Allison's estranged mother, Maggie, Hillary Huber is also completely convincing and compelling. Maggie learns of the crash and Allison's presumed death, but since there are no remains, she refuses to believe it. As Maggie uncovers her daughter's secret life and Allison eludes The Man, author Barry and all three narrators keep listeners spellbound. S.J.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award � AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine