Book Review – Falling by T. J. Newman – Tantalizing Thriller
Table of Contents
My Rating – 4 out of 5
Plot Summary – Falling
This book will give you the chills, of the fatalistic kind – where you wonder ‘What if this happened to me?’ and a cold shiver runs down your spine. The premise is frighteningly real in today’s world, where despite all the security and firewalls and background checks, bad guys who are determined enough, get through and can cause irreparable damage. For it is slightly easy to fight the enemy outside, it is terribly difficult and complicated to fight the enemy within! Even after 9/11, vulnerabilities still exist in our systems, and catastrophe is just a small mistake away.
T.J. Newman spins a scary tale, albeit with a couple of holes, but overall, none of what she conjures is beyond the realm of possibility.
Bill Hoffman is a seasoned, two decades of experience-laden commercial Pilot for Coastal Air, operating out of LA. On a day he was supposed to attend his son Scott’s sports day, he’s called away to fly to New York by his boss, and he can’t say no. He leaves behind his wife Carrie, son Scott and his 10-month old infant daughter Elise. Little did he know on that morning, how terrible the day ahead of him is going to get. It starts off like any other working day, Bill reaches the Airport, checks in, checks his Aircraft and after all routine steps takes off for JFK with 149 ‘souls on board.’
Once Bill is in the air and all looks like a routine working day, an email pings on Bill’s phone. Somebody is holding his family hostage at home and has strapped a suicide vest on his wife Carrie while holding the detonator himself. His only demand – that Bill crash the plane if he wants to save his family! A chilling reminder that in today’s world, nobody is safe anywhere….Faced with this impossible choice, Bill struggles to decide. On one hand is his young beloved family and on the other the responsibility of 140 odd innocent souls whose life or death decision has been placed in his hands.
One shudders at the thought of having to make such a choice, without recourse to any other course of action. And as the kidnapper tells him, he has a backup plan too – somebody in the plane is working with him and anything Bill does to mitigate the problem will be immediately known and his family will die. But the crafty Bill Hoffman finds a way to alert his crew to his predicament somewhat but how does he get out of this jam? Does he crash the plane to save his family or let his family die and save the plane?
Conclusion – Book Review of Falling
T. J. Newman is from the Aviation industry and even her family is into Aviation. This is her first novel, written during numerous red-eye flights when the passengers slept. By her own admission, she had 41 rejections of her draft novel before being accepted for publication. There’s a lesson in tenacity and perseverance right there! But some inconsistencies and unanswered questions aside, she has done a fabulous job and her debut novel is a cracking read, both in terms of the ingenuity of the story and the sizzling pace! Once you start, you’ll not want to put it down…
It is hard to follow up this kind of quality for anybody, but I sincerely hope and pray that T.J. does it. She has a gift of storytelling and if she can iron out a few wrinkles, she’ll be churning out bestsellers year after year! For the time being, grab a copy of Falling, lie back and enjoy this rollicking ride…. Just for the sheer audacity of the plot!
*I hope you have enjoyed reading this book review as much as I have enjoyed writing this! Do watch this space for more such reviews and navigate through the links below for more… Thank you!! *
