Claire Cook has realized it’s time to escape her marriage. Her husband, Rory, is a Kennedy-esque political star on the rise who is quite abusive behind closed doors. She has spent months squirreling away money and carefully planning a way to disappear. She was going to attend a work event in Detroit and then slip away to Canada. But on the morning of her trip, Rory decides they should swap appearances: he would speak in Detroit and her plane ticket has been changed to Puerto Rico for a different political function. Freaking out in the airport, she meets Eva, another woman almost as desperate to escape as she is. In a Parent Trap move, they decide to change tickets, sending Eva to Puerto Rico and Claire to Oakland, California. But when Claire lands, she learns the Puerto Rico flight has crashed with no survivors. Since she is now supposedly dead, her new life feels more like a dead end trap…especially since Eva – the identity she now has to assume – was keeping some dangerous secrets of her own.
I know I know we’ve seen thrillers about women trying to escape abusive husbands before, but I liked this one because it paced really well. I also liked Eva’s character development and, while I won’t give it away, where her character ends up. And most importantly, there was no love interest. Claire doesn’t fall in love with a well-meaning police officer working the case or a member of her household staff who saw the bruises and always pined for her but never knew how to cross her powerful husband. While there was a coincidence or two, the book avoided such a major cliché.
4 out of 5
Pair with: Gin with a twist
Peaches to Apples 