It was OK. Wouldn't buy this for anyone. Found the comments within comments annoying

It is hard to write a review on this book. There are a lot of things that were bothering me while reading but as this book is filled with raw emotion I could not stop reading. First Scott and JJ, the survivors. They are easy to connect to and I reading about the struggle Scott and JJ had to go trough not just during the crash but after too was really interesting. I would have loved a few chapters from JJ his point of view though.
There are various chapters on the other passengers which are mostly used to give the Kiplings and David more background and build up conspiracy theories. I understand why this choice was made to tell it like that but it did disturb my reading flow as I was really invested in the now part of the story.
There were a few chapters on paintings too which I did not understand.
Bill his part of the story made me very angry. It is hard to tell more on that without spoilers so I wont. But that guy made me really angry.
I was surprised with the end.Though there are 100 explanations how Scott got there I missed it for the story. All of a sudden it was there. It does answer the questions but leaves space for so many more.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. I like Noah Hawley's style of writing, particularly the way he told the back stories of the characters caught up in the crash .The ending was left open for the reader to consider their own ending. Good.

Chilling, thrilling and well constructed thriller. Authentic characters. Edge of your seat stuff.

An excellent thriller where the outcome is known but the story is still worth reading. There is the essential human touch as you read the personal stories with a deep sense of foreboding. I loved it.

A small plane crashes into the Atlantic on its way from Martha's Vineyard to New York, a journey that should only take 30 minutes, killing 9 of the 11 people on board.
The story of the passengers on the plane and the events leading up to the crash are told through a series of flashbacks, the investigation team and the only adult male survivor who also rescued a four year old boy from the wreckage.
The fact that one of the passengers was head of a 24 hour news channel and another was about to be indicted for money laundering means that media interest is at fever pitch.
At the heart of this book though is how chance, fate or whatever you want to call it, can suddenly disrupt lives in an instant, our decisions and actions can change lives forever or even end them.
I found this a powerful and uncomfortable read which I really enjoyed. None of us know what's around the corner thank goodness!
I'd like to thank Netgalley for this copy.

This is one of those thrillers that was so much better than I expected. It went off in a very different direction to the one I was expecting at the start, but it dug deep under the skin of the characters. The plotting was great - slowly revealing details to help us piece together what happened. Ultimately, what happened was not at all what we predicted at the start - but it was, in my view, better for not playing the obvious thriller cliches. I can imagine this would make a great movie.

Skips from person to person who could have been responsible???
keeps you guessing until the end then the great reveal. Cleverly written has your imagination bouncing around liked the way it built the characters up and all of them could have had a motive.......................but why did an aeroplane fall out of the sky?????

6.5/10

An intriguing read based around a plane crash, some mysteries and a couple of survivors and deceased back stories. It had its peaks and troughs but kept my attention for the majority but just failed to live up to some of the hype that has surrounded it.

I enjoyed aspects of this story, like the main survivor's journey from hero to villain with his media portrayal and questions surrounding him. But then, when there was momentum, there would be a shift of viewpoint or something that changed the line of where things were going and it jarred.

There were some good bits throughout, just not enough to rate highly. The ending was a bit of a disappointment too and there wasn't a great reveal but maybe this is me wanting something that this book wasn't. I'd read something else written by the author though as there are elements which were good.

This started off as a very interesting story and then it started rambling all over the place. I stuck with it hoping the storyline would appear again but it didn't and I lost interest.

It's a summer night in 2015 and a private jet takes off from Martha's Vineyard for its short flight to New York. Eleven people are on board - two families (the head of one is a powerful Murdoch-esque political player, and the other, a multi-millionaire whose company is being watched by the FBI for money laundering) and a late addition of an artist who is supported by one of the wives on board and is hitching a lift back into town. But only eighteen minutes after take-off, the plane crashes into the sea in suspicious, unexplained circumstances. All on board are killed - except two. Miraculously, the artist survives, along with a four-year old boy from one of the wealthy families. Initially hailed as a hero, he eventually gets swept up as a suspect in the subsequent investigation....

So this is a who/why dunnit. How did the at plane crash? Why did it crash? And are there murky dealings at play? And all from the hand of a man who knows much about creating mystery - Noah Hawley, a writer and producer on the hit TV shows, Fargo and Bones.

There are aspects that I enjoyed about this book - and there are elements I did not. So, overall, I'm coming out with a midway three star review.

First off, there are 'packaging' and marketing issues here. This is being sold as a thriller. It is categorically not a thriller. Thrillers require suspense and stakes - neither of which exist here. The 'crime' has already happened - the plane goes down at the start of the book - and no one else is going to get killed. Like I said, it's a mystery rather than a thriller. Plus, this book has the worst cover design I've seen for a while. It's too bland for what is a very engaging and well-crafted mystery.

So this aside, is the book itself any good? Well, yes. Broadly. It reads just like a television series. We drift away from the central narrative of the plane crash to unravel the personal lives of not just every single person on that plane, but also the crash investigators, loosely associated billionaire daughters, those left with custody of the young boy... It's a compelling drama but this is a slow-burner for the vast section of the book. Each chapter reads like an episode of a long-running TV show where we involve ourselves in red herrings, character backstories and ancillary information. As I adjusted to it, I found it engaging and well-written, but you do have to accept that this is not one for those craving a fast-paced thriller.

But what i didn't enjoy were the female characters. Christ, they are terrible. They are either mice, cowed by husbands and partners, or sex kittens who (bizarrely) seem desperate to get into bed with washed-up artists. It's so unbelievable and betrays that this is a male writer who has very limited insight into women. There's even a line in here about a woman 'painting the town red with menstrual blood' which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

So that is disappointing and jarring. However, I know others have found the ending disappointing but this is where i come back to the book being, overall, a compelling read because (no spoilers) the climax is fully in keeping with the themes of the book, which explore cause and effect in life. Perhaps there are revelations from characters which are a little hard to see coming but Before the Fall (not a great name for this book, either) is an engaging mystery for those looking for a bit of escapism.

Keeps you turning the pages way into the night!

When talented but struggling artist Scott Burroughs is offered a lift back to New York from Martha’s Vineyard, little does he realise the implications. For this lift is aboard a private jet and Fate has a bumpy ride in store for Scott.

The plane is owned by multi-millionaire David Bateman, CEO of the ‘news-making rather than new-reporting’ ALC News. In addition to David, his wife Maggie and their two children, nine-year-old Rachel and four-year-old son JJ, are ‘friends’ Ben and Sarah Kipling. These, together with flight crew and security detail, comprise the occupants of the plane.

When the aircraft crashes into the sea some few minutes into the flight, the only survivors are Scott and JJ, whom Scott helps to survive the many hours they have to spend in the water before making it to land. The relationship that Scott and JJ develop becomes an important thread within the story.

Noah Hawley is the creator and writer of the Emmy Award-winning series ‘Fargo’ which will explain why this is such a good book. He manages to create a really good thriller, with twists and turns in its plot right up the end. By giving the reader a glimpse into the backgrounds of most of the fallen occupants, he ramps up the suspense chapter by chapter.

How Noah Hawley illustrates the manipulation of Bill Milligan at ALC News to turn the hero Scott into some sort of villain of the piece is truly wonderful writing and will strike a note in most readers’ minds.

There are many underlying sub-plots and relationships within this book which all add to the overall plot to make it one of the best books that I have read this year.

Thank you Noah Hawley and keep the ink flowing!

Sméagol

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.

3.5 stars. This book was not at all what I expected from the blurb. It's so much more than just a thriller about a plane crash. It took me right inside the mind of the characters. I found beginning and end of the story totally engrossing, however the middle was quite slow and even boring in places, so I had to skim through the pages. Some of the characters were cringingly cliché and one-dimensional (Layla, Doug, Gus). Great idea, well-written but a little disjointed.
Many thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC.

There’s something very special about the way Hawkins writes. His characters are always so remarkably interesting. His use of language to depict and describe has a unique and resonating impact and creates a strong visualisation. It can be a subtle short sentence such as ‘{He sat} watching the sunset with a whisper smile’ or a more deftly elongated descriptive dialogue.
Grabbing our attention from the start we are briefly introduced to a set of characters that embark on a 16 minute flight that descends into the ocean, with all bar 2 people killed. There is a hint of the complexities that are due to unfold as the tension between David Bateman, a self-made billionaire that heads a news network and Ben Kipling who had received a tip off that he was about to be arrested is alluded to, not to mention an Israeli security official with a dubious past.
David, his wife Maggie and their daughter die, but his son JJ survives. Ben and the crew also die. The only other survivor is the odd ball passenger that had been invited to join them by Maggie. Scott is a disaster artist living a very simple and hidden life on Martha’s Vineyard. He was due to travel to new York for an art exhibition, and Maggie who had become quite a good friend had offered him a seat, save him travelling the long and arduous way.
Drawing on every inch of his life skills and long time ago competitive swimming abilities, Scott carries JJ on his back and against all the odds manages to swim 8 miles to the shore. What transpires is a story to uncover what happened and why the plane crashed. It deals impressively with how the media can take a situation and focus on an angle only to completely distort the events giving the public an altered perception that unwittingly misleads them.
Scott has to deal with wanting to be an unknown person, to being a hero and needing to be all that others want him to be irrespective of his own desires. Progressively his image is tarnished, made out to be a dubious character who may have been more inclined to create a disaster rather than just paint them.
Scott a ‘40-year-old man with 20 years of booze and debauchery ballooning his middle and weathering his face’ is hardly the pin up. He considers his paintings to be a metaphorical reflection of the disaster of a life he has lived through. But he is grounded in a refreshing take on life and can cut through the media circus in an articulate and alternate way. How he deals with the reality of the situation in the spotlight and what really happened is revealed as we learn more about each of the characters that were on board and their sometimes uncertain lives. The relationship with the boy offers a heart-warming element. Essentially this is brisk suspense/whodunit thriller with lots of unusual contemporary components, creatively incorporated within. Perfect for fans of the TV series Fargo.

I was sent a copy of this book in return for my independent honest review. The premise of this book was really interesting to me. There has been a private plane crash with only two survivors Scott and one of the children, whom he manages to swim to shore with. I soon became hooked into the story and writing within the first few chapters. I thought that this was going to be a 5* read for me. Unfortunately once the author took you into the back stories of everyone who lost their lives in the crash, I lost momentum and interest. Whilst I appreciated that there was something suspicious about the cause of the crash and ? Was it at all related to anyone on board, it was plodding and boring. I do enjoy slow burning mysteries and if this your bag then give this book a try. For me the plot and characters need to be engaging enough to keep going and sorry this time they weren't. Good satisfying ending though.
Noah Hawley is an excellent writer, however this particular book didn't warrant a higher star rating than 3.5*

A plane crashes and the only two survivors are Scott Burroughs and JJ. Scott is a painter and an unexpected passenger on the private jet and JJ is the young son of extremely rich parents.

Alternating between the aftermath of the crash and the backstories of the plane's passengers and crew, this is a fast paced novel that I read in a single day; it was hard to put down and holds the reader's attention from the first page until the hard to guess conclusion. The backstories and relationships between the characters add depth and flavour to the mystery of the plane crash and the investigation into its cause, providing humour, sadness, love, anger .......

A highly enjoyable book which I received from the publisher, via Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

A rich, nuggetty slice of thoughtful thrillery : sensation seeking society in the dock

Noah Hawley does far more than craft a page-turning thriller. He is a writer who makes the reader think about the ethics of the society we live in, how it might be, to inhabit the lives of his creations, and, what choices WE might make, in helping to create the ethics of our world.

I first found him with the troubling The Good Father, a novel written from the perspective of a loving father whose son carries out an assassination on a respected presidential hopeful.

So, when offered Before The Fall, as a digital ARC, I was interested BECAUSE the author was Hawley, and thought the novel itself would be rather more interesting than the blurb suggested . Any book with any kind of sensationalist story, might be written purely as a ratchet tension, or, might ratchet, and have more about it. And, of course, Hawley being Hawley, it does.

The CEO of a populist news channel, who promotes, rather, edgy conspiracy driven, whip up feelings programmes, which are not necessarily blazing with the light of truth, is travelling back from Martha’s Vineyard to New York, with his family, in a commissioned private plane. He is the kind of man who warrants 24 hour private protection. Also on the plane is another member of the superpowerful, superwealthy, from the financial makers and shakers of society, wheeling and dealing, skating close to the edges of the law, and not always holding the moral line. In fact, possibly off centre a lot. On board also, is someone quite different. An artist, possibly a good one, a man with a bit of a bad boy personal past, someone who appeared to show more promise than he ever realised, but, now, on the verge of having found his vision again.

Inexplicably 18 minutes into the flight, the plane plunges off radar and crashes into the ocean. Inexplicably, two survive. Scott Burroughs, the artist, and the CEO’s youngest child, 4 year old JJ. That survival is inexplicable, and happens because Burroughs, someone influenced when a small child by the media star figure of Jack Lalanne, had taken to ‘you can do anything if you really put the work in’ challenging swimming. With busted shoulder, in fog, wreckage and darkness, he takes the heroic path, hearing the child crying out somewhere near him in the ocean and gets the two of them to shore, several miles away.

The high profiles, power and wealth of David Bateman, the TV man, and Ben Kipling suggest that the crash may have been more than ordinary mechanical failure. So contrasting investigative teams are drawn in. One, searching purely for evidence about aircraft and its safety, the other, part of an investigation into motive, and lawbreaking, not to mention, terrorism.

In these days, conspiracy theories are always of far more interest than rational explanations. Scandal, we all know, sells. So there are also far scummier motivations at work. Bateman’s populist channel has a rabble-rousing, fake-news peddling, soaring ratings presenter, Bill Milligan. So…….whilst some news outlets present more sober, as factual-as-the-can-be-till-we-know-more accounts of what happened, and are pretty sure that Scott Burroughs is a good, old-fashioned hero, others have more of an ear out for the whisper of conspiracy.

Burroughs is by nature a private man, and unwilling anyway to become the fodder of a feeding frenzy of ‘how did it feel?’ ‘how did manage to do that?’ interest, however benevolently curious. This, in part, feeds Milligan’s natural tendency to go for any jugular going – blood-letting, sleaze, slime gets massive ratings. Some journalists exploit our seamier desires.

Stylistically, Hawley gives us the inside stories, the in the head viewpoints, of all who were on the aircraft, passengers and crew, all involved in the investigation, and others drawn into the fallout of tragedy.

This is thriller – why did this happen, is there a hidden agenda beyond the obvious – which is wonderfully page-turning, but, all through, it also makes the reader think. How responsible are we, when we consume sleaze stories, for the continuation of sleaze? There are other topics thrown in for good measure, often little more than asides, Hawley casts pearls, and we must hope we are not swine!

Before the Fall focuses on a private plane crash. There were eleven individuals on what ended up being a very short flight of only 16 minutes. All but one person on the flight, Scott Burroughs, are wealthy or well known. Only Scott and JJ, a four year old boy, survive the crash.

Before the Fall has a very strong opening! I was pulled in immediately with the plane crash and Scott and JJ trying to survive in the ocean at night. It is very intense and I like Noah Hawley’s writing style. I felt like I could see everything happening as I read Before the Fall.

There are two splices of time in the novel: Before and after the crash. There are multiple points of view (POV) in the story. If you follow my reviews then you know I love books with multiple POVs! Scott is the main focus in the POVs after the crash, and with good reason. He survived and many agencies including the NTSB want to know what happened. I never wanted to stop reading when the novel focused on Scott. We see all the emotions and feelings Scott goes through, and all of his experiences with the media that a plane crash survivor may go through, both positive and negative.

You also get a feel of what the investigations are like for plane crashes. It seems like Noah Hawley did his homework. I felt I learned something reading Before the Fall.

In the flashbacks before the plane crash we get to know each of the passengers, pilot, copilot, and flight attendant that did not survive. These were interesting as well and all are important as it all comes together for us to discover the cause of the crash. I found myself still interested in these stories, but not as intensely interested as I was in Scott and JJ’s stories after the crash.

What kept me from giving Before the Fall five stars is the ending. Yes, we find out the cause of the crash, but after all the buildup the ending was anticlimactic and not satisfying for me. With everything suspected throughout the novel, I was expecting something more than what we got which was a simple yet unexpected cause. I wish I could say more, but that would involve spoiling the ending.

Despite my disappointment in the ending, Before the Fall is recommended.


**Before the Fall had been on my TBR pile for a while and I happened across it on NetGalley as a ‘Read Now’. It said preferred for UK readers as it is a new release in the UK, but NetGalley still let me read it. Thank you for my copy NetGalley!

Eleven people are on a private plane flying from Martha's Vineyard to New York - the plane crashes and only two survive. One is Scott Burroughs a struggling artist and the other is the four year old son of a billionaire. Was the plane sabotaged, was the billionaire targetted because of the views aired on his television station. One of the other passengers was due to be indicted by the Treasury - did someone target the plane to keep him quiet. Couldn't put this book down - had to keep reading to find out what had really happened. Great read.

Thanks to Netgalley, the publishers and Noah Hayley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

What a stunning read this was, and, to think this is going to become a film, I'll be first in line to watch it.

This is full of suspense, intrigue and full on the edge of your seat stuff. This book makes your heart pound and really gets your brain thinking.

You know those books that you don't want to finish?
You know those books that you don't know what to read next because that one was so dam good?
The ones that long after you put it down, you remember it?

Yep, this is one of them.

When the private jet plunges into the sea with only two survivors, that is the time to realize you will not be leaving your seat until you have this read.
It really was a captivating read.

It gave me goosebumps on some occasions whether that was through shock or anticipation I am not sure, maybe both.

I CAN'T WAIT FOR THE FILM.

My thanks to HODDER & STOUGHTON for my copy