The Last Flight by Julie Clark

Author : Julie Clark
Title : The Last Flight
Publisher : Sourcebooks Landmark
Published : 2020
Pages : 320
Genre : Mystery / Thriller

     Claire Cook has a perfect life. Married to the scion of a political dynasty, with a Manhattan townhouse and a staff of ten, her surroundings are elegant, her days flawlessly choreographed, and her future auspicious. But behind closed doors, nothing is quite as it seems. That perfect husband has a temper that burns as bright as his promising political career, and he's not above using his staff to track Claire's every move, making sure she's living up to his impossible standards. But what he doesn't know is that Claire has worked for months on a plan to vanish. A chance meeting in an airport bar brings her together with a woman whose circumstances seem equally dire. Together they make a last-minute decision to switch tickets--Claire taking Eva's flight to Oakland, and Eva traveling to Puerto Rico as Claire

     What would it take for you to walk out of your life? Do you spend months planing or is it more of spare of the moment thing? In The Last Flight, this is the question we get to ask our selves and explore through two women that on the surface may seem completely different. They live in very different worlds but both struggle to deal with the situations they have come to find themselves in. But we all have a breaking point, a singular or series of events when we decide that it is time to walk away. And for this is what sunk its hooks into me,  It is a thought that more than once has crossed my mind on some of my worst days. Is this the point I close the door and never look back. 

      The two heroes Clark gives us are notably different, one from the highest end of the social scale and the other trying to make her way near the bottom. But as she shows us this makes no difference, we can all come up against things that make our lives so unbearable we feel the need to flee. It is difficult for me to pick a favorite, one whos time grabbed me more than the other. She has crafted these two so spectacularly well that there secrets and mysteries captivated me with equal sitting. 

     As I moved between each of these women there lives unraveled, each time I was given little clues as to not only the backstory but how they ended up meeting at that exact moment in time. I enjoyed how the story flowed between past and present each time adding to the tension the author had built. This is one of those stories that makes you want to race through to the next chapter desperately trying to find out the next revelation. But at the same time, I never felt she rushed herself in the narrative. Each moment came at just the right point in my reading. So every time I figured I knew where the story was about to go I was left to make a course correction. To try and take everything I had previously learned and added it to the new.  This adds to the subtle cat and mouse game that not only her characters play but the one she has played with us the whole way through. 

     There was a great deal to enjoy about The Last Flight, from its well-developed characters to the moral implications she raises from them. What do we do to survive in the world, can we always justify our own actions. But also how much do we let others dictate who we are and what we can do. I can honestly say that I cannot pick any faults in this book. Clark has given me a book that I flew through and could not wait to recommend to others.