Freefall

In the pseudonymous Barry’s uneven debut, Maggie Carpenter, who lives in Owl Creek, Maine, is alarmed to learn from the news that her estranged daughter, Allison, has gone missing following the crash of a private plane in the Colorado Rockies. Media identify the pilot as Allison’s fiancé, Ben Gardner, the CEO of a major pharmaceutical company, though Maggie hadn’t even known her daughter was engaged. Everyone insists that Allison is dead, but Maggie becomes obsessed with retracing her daughter’s steps from the last two years. Soon, everything Maggie thought she knew about her daughter falls away, and she discovers a world of money, power, and deception that implicates everyone from the FDA to those closer to home. Meanwhile, Allison, who somehow survived the plane crash, battles hunger, exhaustion, and injury in the Colorado wilderness. Barry’s meditations on mother-daughter relationships and female roles add much-needed dimension to an otherwise shallow plot full of predictable twists and surface-level emotion. Still, this psychological thriller is perfect for fans of Liane Moriarty and Claire Mackintosh. Agent: Alexandra Machinist, ICM. (Jan.)