Minor spoilers.
I'm a huge fan of Hawley's TV work - notably Fargo and the truly astonishing Legion - so when I saw he was also a novelist I jumped on this.
Starting is was a strange experience. I'd just finished [author:Emily St. John Mandel|2786093]'s [book:The Glass Hotel|45754981], and to have the second book in a row starting with someone in the ocean, then giving various character backstories one of which involved financial crimes, really did give me an odd sense of deja vu. However, the two are very different books.
Here, a private jet flying from Martha's Vineyard to New York mysteriously crashes 18 minutes into the short flight. The only survivors are Scott Thompson, a painter, and the four-year-old boy he rescues and swims to shore with, in a remarkable act of perseverance.
Each chapter gives us the back story of one of the people on the flight - the conservative media magnate who owns the jet and his family, the slightly less wealthy couple who are their friends, the crew and Scott - as well as exploring the repercussions of the event. Is the crash to do with the fraud investigation, or an attack on the mogul, or something entirely unrelated? Is if just an accident?
Originally described as a hero, the biggest commentator on the right-wing news channel run by the plane owner, Bill <s>O'Reilly</s> Milligan decides the death of his boss - and friend - was caused by a terrorist attack that the government are obviously covering up and that this survivor must be involved.
Hawley unravels the story expertly, drawing rich characters with effortless prose. Along with the mystery of the crash he explores the power of the media and touches on the levels of extreme wealth - the fraudulent investment fund manager "rich, but not owning my own jet rich", to the media mogul, to the socialite art collector in New York who may be the seventh richest person in the world and "can buy literally anything - OK, maybe not Amazon".
This is a literary slow-burn of a mystery, not a thriller, and is utterly absorbing. Perhaps the ending is too sudden but, other than that, it's damned near perfect.
