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Every day, thousands of people board planes at your local airport. They find their seats, stow their bags, and join their fellow passengers in traveling to their destination. But for the two women in The Business Trip by Jessie Garcia, their lives both take an unexpected turn after they land.
The story begins as two very different women are preparing to board a plane out of Madison, Wisconsin. Jasmine is leaving in secret, desperate to escape her abusive boyfriend and start a new life in Denver. Stephanie is a television news director who’s traveling to San Diego for yet another business conference. A few days after they leave town, the women’s friends and colleagues begin receiving strange texts—with both women mentioning a man named Trent McCarthy. And when the texts turn fearful, the police are called in to investigate.
The story’s setup is an unusual one. Instead of telling the story from the perspective of the victims—or even the culprit—the author allows the story to unfold from the perspective of the women’s friends and colleagues. All we know about what happened at the conference is what we read in texts sent to Jasmine’s friend, Anna—or to Stephanie’s neighbor and her staff at the TV station. And as the texts get stranger and more suspicious, the situation becomes more and more unnerving. And just when readers may think they know the story—or at least parts of it—the author takes a step back and tells the same story from a different perspective.
The storytelling here is definitely clever—and with each new character, each new perspective, the mystery takes another unexpected twist. Nothing here is quite as it seems, and readers will keep turning pages, eager to find out what really happened to these two women—and the mysterious man from Atlanta who seems to be connected to them both. Admittedly, though, when the truth comes out, the answers aren’t all satisfying. Some of the characters act out of character—and some of the scenarios seem too convenient. The setup here is certainly fascinating—but it falls apart a bit in the execution.
With its attention-grabbing setup and its constant twists, The Business Trip makes for a gripping thriller—the kind that will keep readers guessing...and re-guessing...as it continues to shift its perspective. But while it’s an often riveting journey, readers may feel dissatisfied in the end.
Listen to the review on Shelf Discovery:
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