Before the Fall, Noah Hawley
Before the Fall, Noah Hawley
93 Rating(s)
List: $31.99 | Sale: $22.40
Club: $15.99

Before the Fall

Bestseller

Author: Noah Hawley

Narrator: Robert Petkoff

Unabridged: 12 hr 55 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/31/2016

Synopsis

On a foggy summer night, eleven people--ten privileged, one down-on-his-luck painter--depart Martha's Vineyard on a private jet headed for New York. Sixteen minutes later, the unthinkable happens: the plane plunges into the ocean. The only survivors are the painter Scott Burroughs and a four-year-old boy, who is now the last remaining member of an immensely wealthy and powerful media mogul's family.

Was it by chance that so many influential people perished? Or was something more sinister at work? A storm of media attention brings Scott fame that quickly morphs into notoriety and accusations, and he scrambles to salvage truth from the wreckage. Amid trauma and chaos, the fragile relationship between Scott and the young boy grows and glows at the heart of this stunning novel, raising questions of fate, morality, and the inextricable ties that bind us together.

Kristin Hannah raves, "Noah Hawley really knows how to keep a reader turning the pages... a complex, compulsively readable thrill ride of a novel."

Winner of the 2017 Edgar Award for Best Novel and the 2017 International Thriller Writers Award For Best Novel

From the Award-Winning Creator of Fargo Comes "One of the Year's Best Suspense Novels" (New York Times).

Reviews

Goodreads review by Chelsea on February 02, 2018

I've read some pretty great books this year; so far I've been able to track a total of 107 since January 1st. A few have been total duds, most have been an enjoyable read but utterly forgettable; however, there have been a select few that I have read in 2016 that I would place in a special bracket-m......more

Goodreads review by Maggie on February 06, 2017

It's difficult for me to recommend thrillers to non-thriller readers. I grew up reading them and so have a high tolerance for the genre conventions. You know, men named Jack or Tom who will later be played by Denzel Washington or Liam Neeson. Shadowy figures from whichever country your grandpa think......more

Goodreads review by Kemper on June 23, 2016

The main reason I wanted to read this is because I’m such a huge fan of the TV show Fargo. Noah Hawley is the main producer and writer responsible for transforming the great Coen brothers’ movie into something that has risen to the top of my viewing list even during this Golden Age of Television whi......more

Goodreads review by Barbara on July 07, 2024

I love this character-driven thriller story. I haven’t read any other novels by author Noah Hawley, so now I know he’s an author with amazing talent. In this novel, there’s a plane crash 18 minutes after takeoff. It’s a private plane with eleven passengers. There’s the pilot and copilot, a stewardess......more

Quotes

"This is one of the year's best suspense novels, a mesmerizing, surprise-jammed mystery that works purely on its own, character-driven terms....Mr. Hawley has made it very, very easy to race through his book in a state of breathless suspense."—Janet Maslin, New York Times

"BEFORE THE FALL is a ravishing and riveting beauty of a thriller. It's also a deep exploration of desire, betrayal, creation, family, fate, mortality, and rebirth. It's one part Dennis Lehane, one part Dostoevsky. I was spellbound from first page to last; I haven't fully recovered yet."—Michael Cunningham, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hours

"Noah Hawley really knows how to keep a reader turning the pages, but there's more to the novel than suspense. On one hand, BEFORE THE FALL is a complex, compulsively readable thrill ride of a novel. On the other hand, it is an exploration of the human condition, a meditation on the vagaries of human nature, the dark side of celebrity, the nature of art, the power of hope and the danger of an unchecked media. The combination is a potent, gritty thriller that exposes the high cost of news as entertainment and the randomness of fate."—Kristin Hannah, New York Times Book Review

"[A] terrific thriller...an irresistible mystery.. a tale that's both an intriguing puzzle and a painful story of human loss."—Patrick Anderson, Washington Post

"Imagine that Agatha Christie had set a closed-room mystery on an airplane and included Wall Street and entertainment executive types in her lineup of suspects. Now imagine that airplane crashing into the Atlantic before the story even gets going....Mr. Hawley, the expert TV showrunner, obviously had the skills to pull this off."—New York Times, "The Top Books of 2016"

"I started and finished BEFORE THE FALL in one day. That begins to tell you what kind of smart, compellingly dramatic read it is.

So read it."—James Patterson, #1 New York Times bestselling author and winner of the National Book Foundation's 2015 Literarian Award

"A masterly blend of mystery, suspense, tragedy, and shameful media hype...a gritty tale of a man overwhelmed by unwelcome notoriety, with a stunning, thoroughly satisfying conclusion."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A pulse-pounding story, grounded in humanity."—Booklist (starred review)

"BEFORE THE FALL is an astonishing, character-driven tour-de-force. The story is a multi-layered, immersive examination of truth, relationships, and our unquenchable thirst for the media's immediate explanation of unfathomable tragedy."—Karin Slaughter, #1 internationally bestselling author

"Savvy and absorbing... cathartic...BEFORE THE FALLis about the gulf that separates perception and truth, and the people who fall into it."—Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal

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