Tragic plane crash, or sinister murder mystery?

The story begins with the characters boarding a private jet to fly from Martha’s Vineyard to New York. Without the reader knowing how, or why, the plane crashes into the ocean and is lost from view.

There are two survivors of the crash, the young son of the Bateman family and an artist who was offered a ride on the jet by chance. The artist is a strong swimmer who manages to swim to shore with the young boy on his back. In normal circumstances, this would be regarded as an act of heroism. However, the author takes us on a journey of how the media can reconstruct circumstances to create a news story that plays to the public perception that things are never what they seem.

The hero of Noah Hawley’s Before the Fall is Scott Burroughs, an artist who has achieved some recognition in the New York art scene. Scott realised he had not achieved his artistic goals and had taken refuge in alcohol to escape his sense of failure. After deciding that he wants to resurrect his career, he rents a cottage at Martha’s Vineyard to concentrate on his work.

He is ready to show some of his paintings to a gallery in New York, and he mentions this to Maggie Bateman at the local farmer’s market on Sunday morning.  She offers him a spare seat on the jet, as she did to another couple of who she bumped into that morning.

So it was a random group who took off in the jet that foggy Sunday night for the short flight back to New York.

The novel is written in a captivating manner with the story beginning with the crash and working back chapter by chapter, to explain what was going on in the lives of the other people travelling on the plane.  We were also taken forward to look at what happened to the little boy, and the effect his arrival had on the family of his caretaker. The characters are very well drawn and the reader is included in the investigation into the plane crash.

There were so many possibilities for foul play surrounding this plane crash. Lots of theories were under investigation, and I was led along on a journey which was unresolved until the final chapter. My attention was held until the final pages when it was revealed that the plane crash was not caused by human error or mechanical failure.

Before the Fall by Noah Hawley (published by Hachette Australia) is an intriguing murder mystery that will demand to be read in one sitting. It is available from Dymocks.