Layover (2019)
By David Bell
Berkley/Penguin
Press, 416 pages.
★★★
If you enjoy psychological thriller movies that make you
bolt upright and shout, "Oh no! Do not open that door!!!" David
Bell's novel Layover is like that. No
matter what the medium–movies, novels, campfire tales, TV shows–such works rely
upon building tension to a level where you are fully immersed in the moment.
Alfred Hitchcock famously remarked, "Logic is dull." He meant this in
the sense that effective melodrama goes for the gut, not the brain's logic
center.
Or is it the heart? Or the gonads? Joshua Fields is pretty
much the poster child for the well-scrubbed All American lad. He's considerate,
altruistic, clean-cut, attractive, smart, and successful. That's not to say he
doesn't have his crosses to bear. He was raised by a doting father and went
into pop's real far-flung estate and development business right out of college.
Joshua is making lots of money, but he's never really stretched his own wings.
His job is dull, but he soldiers on because he doesn't want to disappoint his
father. This takes its toll, as Joshua is a nervous flyer who needs Xanax and
airport booze to get onto an airplane. He also has a longtime girlfriend, but
the fire of that relationship is (at best) on smolder.
One evening he's in Atlanta waiting to change planes–the
titular layover–when he meets Morgan Reynolds, an attractive young woman in her
twenties. The two have a drink and
part ways, but not before Morgan surprises Joshua with a body-grinding kiss
that practically makes him jump out of his khakis. On impulse, Joshua decides
not to meet his dad in Florida and instead finagles his way onto a flight to
Nashville, which is where Morgan said she was bound. Yet when he surprises her
on the airplane, the same woman claims she is not Morgan Reynolds, rings the
flight attendant, and asks her to make Joshua stop harassing her.
Bummer! But when Joshua looks up her profile on Facebook–hey
it's the 21st century!–there she is, along with various postings
that say she's missing. Joshua tries to explain this to airport police in
Nashville, who basically say she's an adult and has the right to go missing if
she wishes. A rational person would move on, right? Well, that wouldn't make
for much of a novel, would it? Instead, Joshua decides to investigate on his
own.
Meanwhile, in (fictional) Laurel Falls, Kentucky, Detective
Kimberly Givens is under pressure to locate a missing local businessman, Giles
Caldwell. The mayor is up for reelection, Giles' aggressive brother Simon is raising
a stink, and the mayor has pretty much ordered Givens–who was already passed
over for promotion once before–to work around the clock to find Giles. That's
hard to do if you're divorced and have a (barely) teenaged daughter.
The two stories will, of course, intersect. At each step of
the way Joshua is warned to go back home and leave the investigation to
professionals. Instead, he continues to open doors he shouldn't, even when each
new one brings him more grief and places him in greater danger.
Objectively speaking, Layover
is pulp fiction that frequently demands that readers suspend disbelief. Who
knows? The news is filled with tales of those who have done more illogical
things than Joshua, so maybe there's more verisimilitude to Bell's novel than
we'd like to admit. I can say, though, that Joshua wiggles out of a few legal
situations from which he'd be unlikely to walk away in real life. This is a
416-page book that feels like it's barely half that long. In otherwise, this is
your proverbial page-turner. It releases in July, and I can imagine it will be
a popular beach read.
David Bell is an English professor at Western Kentucky
University with eight previous novels to his credit. Layover is no Woman in White.
It's not even Gone Girl. But
let's give Bell credit for writing a novel with great mass appeal. Sometimes
all a reader wants is good juicy thriller.
Rob Weir
Note: I received an advance copy of this book from Berkeley
and NetGalley to review. I note, however, that it seems to be available on
Kindle.
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