TITLE: THE PILOT’S WIFE

AUTHOR: Anita Shreve

DATE PUBLISHED: 1999

DATE READ: August 2007

NOTES: Kathryn gets a knock at the door in the middle of the night and her life begins to unravel. Her husband has been killed in a mid-air explosion en route to US from London. She and her teenage daughter are both distraught and are comforted by Robert, sent by the airline, and Kathryn’s grandmother Julia. It soon becomes clear that her “good marriage” may not have been all she thought. She picks up the clues and travels to London where she meets up with Muire who has also been “married” to Jack and has two children by him. Meanwhile the press are suggesting suicide by Jack (and at the same time killing a hundred other people) caused by a bomb brought on the plane by him.

This is not the best Shreve book I have read. The prose is lovely and the emotions of Kathryn and Mattie are well handled and believable and the character of Julia is strong. Muire is much less real and the plot all a bit contrived……

The ending is ambivalent which suits the tone of the book.