Turbulent ride with altitude plunges
THE Flight Attendant opens with – dare I say a killer? – of a hangover scene.
Cassandra “Cassie” Bowden is a seasoned survivor when it comes to the after-effects of binge drinking and random hook-ups. A gorgeous single woman in her late thirties, Cassie enjoys the off-duty perks of her job as a flight attendant. A fistful of Advil and a shower, and she’s ready to step back into her slightly crumpled uniform. But one fateful morning in a hotel room in Dubai puts a dead stop to Cassie’s fancy-free lifestyle.
The scene teasingly unfolds over the first five pages of the novel: the harsh morning light, the parched sourness of Cassie’s mouth, the dizzy recollections of a passionate night spent with the hedge fund manager named Alex she met on the flight from New York. Cassie turns to look at the man in the bed beside her:
“For a split second, her mind registered only the idea that something was wrong. It may have been the body’s utter stillness, but it may also have been the way she could sense the amphibian cold. But then she saw the blood… she saw his neck… how the blood had geysered on to his chest and up against the bottom of his chin, smothering the black stubble like honey.”
The slow-motion get-away that plays out over the next five chapters is particularly excruciating, but anxiety-prone readers will have to remind themselves to breathe for pretty much the entirety of this novel.
The Flight Attendant is a rare thriller whose penultimate chapter made me think to myself: “I didn’t see that coming.” The novel – Bohjalian’s 20th – is also enhanced by his deftness in sketching out vivid characters and locales and by his obvious research into the realities of airline work.