A review by minimicropup
Missing In Flight by Audrey J. Cole

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

Had me hooked from the start – fast-paced and fascinating (grab the popcorn). 
 
Energy: Gripping. Bold. Calamitous.
 
🐕 Howls: 
The reasoning behind the plot was ridiculous in an action-adventure movie type of way…the entire scheme relied too much on everything lining up perfectly and was unnecessarily dangerous and complicated, but I had so much fun reading it I didn't rly mind. 
 
🐩 Tail Wags: 
Action scenes that read like an action movie because they unfolded quickly as I imagined them happening. Direct, snappy, cinematic writing style that's easy to visualize. Rapidly shifting POVs giving us hints, reveals, and insights. Well-paced, never dragged, everything is relevant to the story. Short chapters and skipping between the three main scenes. Whenever I had a question, one of the characters would ask it too. Near the end there were moments of suspended disbelief, but I didn’t have to turn off my brain entirely. 
 
Scene: 🇺🇸 ✈️ Set on a flight from Anchorage to LaGuardia, and on the ground the NYC area.
Perspectives (4): The mother of a newborn with a family history. The father of a newborn who works at an investment firm. A co-pilot reconsidering their marriage. An FBI intelligence agent assigned to the case. 
Timeline: Current (2010s/before Face ID). 
🔥 Fuel: Cliffhangers. Interlocking reveals. Escalating stakes race against time. Did someone take the baby? If so, who and why? How did they manage to undetected? Where is it? 
📖 Cred: Suspended disbelief realism
 
Mood Reading Match-Up:
Seatbelt sign. Airplane ambient noise. Turbulence. Laptop. Lightning. Helicopter blades. Warning alarms. 
  • Psychological action-adventure popcorn thriller
  • Locked room mysteries
  • Short chapters
  • Punchy, cinematic writing
  • “Go big or go home” Big Bads
  • What-happened whodunnits
  • Law & Order style FBI investigation digging up the tea
  • Potential unreliable narrator
  • Fly-on-the-wall, reader gets to know more than the characters 
  • Fast-paced action and plot driven stories
  • Who-took-my-baby parenting horrors
 
Content Heads-Up: Infertility. Early menopause. Stalking, home invasion (celeb; brief recall off page). Memory loss, confusion (Alzheimers; transient global amnesia). Loss of parent (as child). Abduction. Death. Fraud. Parental abandonment (as child; very brief recall). Migraines. Sexual harassment (workplace; of male). False accusations. Depression, mental illness (brief recall). Plane stuff
severe turbulence, malfunctioning control, loss of cabin pressure, low fuel, death)
.
 
Rep: American. Cis. Hetero. Ambiguous skin tones.
 
📚 Format: Advance Reader’s Copy from Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley
 
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