LAYOVER by David Bell
David Bell’s new novel LAYOVER has a plot Alfred Hitchcock would have loved. Everyman, Joshua Fields, has a layover in Atlanta. At the airport he casually meets a woman named Morgan Reynolds. She has an air of mystery about her and Joshua is smitten. They share one passionate kiss and then she is gone. But Joshua can’t forget her and decides to pursue her. This action will change his life.
On the surface the plot might seem a bit silly. After all how many of us would pursue a new chance at love with someone we have known for only a few minutes or more. Still in the hands of gifted writer David Bell the unusual becomes believable. Each time the story threatens to veer off into the absurd Bell manages to rope it back in and proceed at a realistic pace.
Joshua Fields is a person whose erratic actions we believe. His life is so routine and so boring that the reader can accept that he would one day explode and do the unpredictable. When he meets Morgan he is primed for an adventure and she says all the right things to trigger that effect. She acts and he reacts.
Morgan is also the perfect person of mystery. When Joshua first meets her she is wearing a hat and sunglasses which she refuses to remove except for short periods of time. She is the woman of his dreams but he didn’t know it until they crossed paths in the Atlantas airport. Once he has found her he can never let her go, or at least that is what he thinks initially.
David Bell has written the perfect “airport” novel. His book will probably be read on airplanes criss-crossing the country. It is an easy read, not too lengthy, and full of twists and turns designed to hold the reader’s focus on the story and not airplane turbulence.
Readers of LAYOVER will find it to be a very satisfying book. It takes an ordinary man and places him in extraordinary circumstances. And if you read it from cover to cover it all makes sense in the end, but you will doubt that at times during the period of reading it.
I was in the mood for an escapist novel and LAYOVER met that need completely. Pick it up regardless of whether you are traveling or not, but if you are taking a plane trip make sure it goes with you.
LAYOVER is published by Berkley. It contains 416 pages and sells for $26.00.
Jackie K Cooper
www.jackiekcooper.com
