The next book to be featured on the Radio 2 Book Club with Steve Wright will be Hostage, the new high-octane thriller from bestselling author Clare Mackintosh. The book was released on 22 June and Clare will be on the show on Wednesday 7 July.
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We have an exclusive extract available for you to read.
Hostage
You can save hundreds of lives.
Or the one that matters most.
The atmosphere on board the inaugural non-stop flight from London to Sydney is electric. Numerous celebrities are rumoured to be among the passengers in business class and journalists will be waiting on the ground to greet the plane.
Mina is one of a hand-picked team of flight attendants chosen for the landmark journey. She’s trying to focus on the task in hand, and not worry about her troubled five-year-old daughter back at home with her husband. Or the cataclysmic problems in her marriage.
But the plane has barely taken off when Mina receives a chilling note from an anonymous passenger, someone intent on ensuring the plane never reaches its destination. Someone who needs Mina’s assistance and who knows exactly how to make her comply.
It’s twenty hours to landing.
A lot can happen in twenty hours…
Selection panel review
The book was selected with the help of a panel of library staff from across the UK. Our readers loved Hostage – here are some of their comments:
“I was excited to read Clare Mackintosh’s new book and it certainly did not disappoint. It is a nail-biting thriller; what would you do? Set on the first non-stop flight from London to Sydney when environmental activists take over the plane, flight attendant Mina must choose between saving the life of her daughter who is being held captive at home or saving the lives of the plane full of passengers. The tension builds through the book. You really don’t know what the outcome will be! This could put you off flying…”
“It was very classic Clare Mackintosh – a thriller that sucked you into seemingly ordinary lives and then twisted and turned all over the place. The action takes place on the first non-stop London-Sydney flight, during which Mina gradually realises that she is involved in a hi-jack situation and that her family at home are not safe. It’s engaging and well-written, with sensitive exploration of issues like adoption, attachment disorder, panic attacks and gambling.”
“A historic plane journey is put under jeopardy when all of the passengers are taken hostage. This book builds up the tension really nicely and moves between characters (both on and off the plane) to make the story stay interesting and leave the reader genuinely confused about who is a bad guy and who is a good guy. I found this book so engaging and it’s an exciting ride. The end (with no spoilers) is genuinely surprising (which is always a nice treat with a thriller these days) and brings the story together nicely. I think it’s a thriller with a bit more bite to it.”
About the author
Clare Mackintosh is the multi-award-winning author of four Sunday Times bestselling novels. Translated into forty languages, her books have sold more than two million copies worldwide, have been New York Times and international bestsellers and have spent a combined total of 50 weeks in the Sunday Times bestseller chart. Clare lives in North Wales with her husband and their three children.
Get involved
Tune in to the Steve Wright show on Wednesday 7 July to hear a live interview with Clare.
Have you read Hostage, or any of Clare’s other novels? You can share your thoughts with us on Twitter using #R2BookClub and you can also follow Clare.
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