Rating: 4/5
Review:
A good read
I enjoyed this book.
Like a lot of others, I suspect, I read it because I thought the two TV
series of Fargo, written by Noah
Hawley, were excellent. This is good,
but not in the same stellar league.
The plot is based around the unexplained crash of a private
plane carrying two super-rich couples, two children the crew and another
passenger – an ordinary sort of chap who's an artist with immense integrity
with whom we can identify as he is caught up in the furore after he survives
the crash and saves one of the children.
All others die, and there is huge media interest in the story.
This is vehicle for Hawley doing what he does well; creating
slightly exaggerated but still very plausible characters and using them to
illuminate social and human issues. As
the investigation continues the present-day narrative is intercut with the stories
of the characters involved. He takes aim
especially at financial malfeasance and unscrupulous media behaviour which
isn't exactly original, but it's pretty well done.
I was put in mind of The Bonfire Of the Vanities more than
once. This isn’t anything like as good
or powerful a book, but the setting among immense wealth and the sense of
entitlement it brings is similar, and the appalling, self-serving behaviour of
the right-wing TV presenter had some parallels with Reverend Bacon. It's very readable and quite tense at times,
but the resolution, however morally desirable, felt very pat and contrived to
me, which let the book down a little.
Not a classic, but a good read with more substance than many
would be my verdict, and a good choice to take on holiday.
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