08 June 2021

Hostage

 

By Clare Mackintosh
Thriller | Psychological Thriller

My Review

The world is watching the first non-stop flight from London to Sydney and the atmosphere is charged. Passengers include celebrities, the wealthy and the privileged. Flight attendant Mina is trying to focus on her duties but her mind keeps wandering to her five-year-old daughter and troubled marriage back home.

Shortly after take-off Mina receives a threatening anonymous note placing the lives of everyone onboard in danger. Her daughter will die unless she cooperates. There's another twenty hours until the plane is due to land in Sydney. Mina must make a terrifying choice — the consequences of which will be massive.

Hostage is the first Clare Mackintosh book I've read and I'm pleased to say I found it highly engaging. The story is told from the perspectives of Mina, her husband Adam and various passengers on the flight. Character development is good and the plot is pacey. 

The author's familiarity with flight deck controls and aircraft protocol is evidence of the sizeable amount of research that must have taken place. You really do feel part of the drama. I thought the twist in the final chapter was ingenious and such a good conclusion.  

Before I finish, a word of warning — make sure you read this book on terra firma and definitely not while flying!

Book Source: Review copy from the publisher
My Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Paperback: 416 pages
Publisher: Sphere (2021) 

The Blurb

You can save hundreds of lives.
Or the one that matters most . . .

The atmosphere on board the first non-stop flight from London to Sydney is electric. Celebrities are rumoured to be among the passengers in business class, and the world is watching the landmark journey.

Flight attendant Mina is trying to focus on the passengers, instead of her troubled five-year-old daughter back at home - or the cataclysmic problems in her marriage.

But soon after the plane takes off, Mina receives a chilling anonymous note. Someone wants to make sure the plane never reaches its destination. They're demanding her cooperation . . . and they know exactly how to get it.

It's twenty hours to landing.
A lot can happen in twenty hours . . .

The Author


With more than two million copies of her books sold worldwide, number one bestseller Clare Mackintosh is the multi-award-winning author of I Let You Go, which was a Sunday Times bestseller and the fastest-selling title by a new crime writer in 2015. It also won the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year in 2016.

Both Clare’s second and third novels, I See You and Let Me Lie, were number one Sunday Times bestsellers. All three of her books were selected for the Richard & Judy Book Club. Clare’s latest novel, After the End, was published in June 2019 and spent seven weeks in the Sunday Times hardback bestseller chart.

Clare’s latest thriller, Hostage, will be published in June 2021.

Together, Clare’s books have been published in more than forty countries. Clare is patron of the Silver Star Society, a charity based at the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford, which supports parents experiencing high-risk or difficult pregnancies. She lives in North Wales with her husband and their three children.

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