Hostage by Clare Mackintosh

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 . . .

Prior to HOSTAGE, the only book by Clare Mackintosh that I have read is AFTER THE END, an intensely emotional and personal novel. Her latest is a completely different novel, a thriller about an aeroplane hijack, the current terminology is 'high concept' I believe; the books really could not be further apart - at least in plot terms. What they share is the author's stunning ability to craft an absorbing story and her gift for character and relationships.

HOSTAGE is a thrill-ride from start to finish. When Mina swaps shifts with a colleague, so that she can crew the first, historic, non-stop flight from London to Sydney, but, primarily, to escape the pressures of her relationships - with Adam, the husband she believes has cheated, and Sophia, their adopted daughter, precocious and loved but demanding, diagnosed with ‘a sea of acronyms’ - she cannot foresee that hijackers will use those relativity force her to help them take the plane. 

The plot alternates between the plane, where Mina finds a note threatening her family should she refuse to aid the hijackers, and her home, where the terrorists follow through on the threat. It is, at times, unbearably tense - can Mina outwit the hijackers, will Adam and Sophia survive - and Clare Mackintosh handles the beats perfectly, ramping up the suspense. If this was all she did, HOSTAGE would still be a remarkable thriller, but it is the characterisation which sets the novel apart. The family relationships are complex, realistic and believable; the terrorists are environmentalists and the author paints them so well that you find yourself sympathising with their aims, questioning the damage that we continue to do to the planet, even as you are repulsed and horrified by their methods. 

HOSTAGE is an outstanding work. Thanks to Little Brown, particularly Francesca Banks for the invitation to review the book. Now to the back catalogue…