Book Review: Cost of Life by Joshua Corin

Cost of Life
Joshua Corin
Alibi, March 2015
ISBN 9781101882610
Ebook

From the publisher—

Happy Independence Day. You’re all going to die.
 
Life can’t be better for veteran pilot Larry Walder. He has a great job, a terrific kid, a gorgeous wife—and no inkling that tonight will be the end of the world as he knows it. In the early hours before the Fourth of July, three men break into Larry’s home. And as the day lurches on to its terrifying course, a life is taken, and Flight 816 from Atlanta to Cozumel, Mexico, vanishes off the radar.
 
In the air, Larry must find a way to save his family, his crew, and his passengers. On the ground, disgraced FBI agent Xanadu Marx goes rogue, making it her mission to track down the missing flight before the hijackers reach their diabolical endgame. With the casualties racking up and the world’s busiest airport under lockdown, a message arrives: This is no ordinary hijacking, no typical hostage crisis. This ransom is a totally different beast—the first hint of a conspiracy that might bring America to its knees.

I’m drawn to thrillers involving airplanes in jeopardy for some reason so, when offered the chance to participate in this blog tour, I jumped right on it. Once I started reading, and all through the book, I was delighted to find that Cost of Life is really, really good.

From the first sentences, I bonded with Larry Walder and his family with just a simple scenario of a little boy and his parents having fun together. I did not, of course, bond with the bad guys who show up on the scene early on and are, indeed, very bad guys. It’s apparent that they will have no reluctance to harm Marie and Sean so Larry is left with a terrible choice—which lives matter more, Marie’s and Sean’s or the 174 people on board the airplane that should be heading to Cozumel?

I don’t know about anyone else here but, once past the initial moderate unease during takeoff, I find most flights to be excruciatingly boring. Believe me when I say Flight 816 to Cozumel is anything but boring and Mr. Corin manages to ratchet up the tension every time he shows us certain passengers.

Then there’s Special Agent Xana Marx, a woman who has made a mess of her life. She may not make it back into the FBI but she has talents the authorities need if they’re going to find the missing plane and a waif of a girl named Hayley O’Leary just may be the person to bring Xana the redemption she so sorely needs. Both are severely damaged, each in her own way, but it’s hard for me to say which of these two very different people I liked the most.

There are just a few authors who reside on my list of favorite thriller writers but I think I’ve found one to add to that list, Joshua Corin. After this rollercoaster of a tale, I can barely wait to see what he’ll give us next.

Reviewed by Lelia Taylor, April 2015.

************

Purchase Links:

         

************

About the Author

Joshua Corin is the author of Nuclear Winter Wonderland, While Galileo Preys, and Before Cain Strikes. He holds an M.A. in English and an M.A. in theater from Binghamton University, and currently teaches college in Atlanta, Georgia.

Author Links:

 

              

************

Follow the tour here.

************