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Weekend picks for book lovers, including 'The Flight Attendant' by Chris Bohjalian


What should you read this weekend? Paste BN’s picks for book lovers include Chris Bohjalian's high-flying thriller The Flight Attendant and Anna Quindlen's new novel, Alternate Side.

The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian; Doubleday, 354 pp.; fiction

A woman. A murder. A mode of public transportation. Paula Hawkins put the formula on rails in The Girl on the Train. Ruth Ware took it out to sea in The Woman in Cabin 10. It was only a matter of time before somebody gave it wings.

In the expertly turned thriller The Flight Attendant, the woman is Cassie, a flight attendant whose hard-partying ways are degenerating into alcoholism as she exits her 30s.

During a layover in Dubai, a blackout-drunk liaison with a hedge-fund manager she met in first class leads to some familiar morning-after regrets. And then worse: She notices her hookup has had his throat slashed in bed.

Was the murderer the mysterious woman she blurrily remembers visiting the suite? Has Cassie been set up for the crime? Might she be so out of control that she committed the murder herself?

Bohjalian lets Cassie torment herself for a time, but it’s soon clear the killer was a Russian assassin hired by one of the fund’s wronged investors. Cassie has been oblivious not just to the harm she’s been doing to herself with alcohol, but to a complex network involving American spies, Russian oligarchs, chemical weapons and Cassie’s family and co-workers.

Paste BN says ★★★ out of four. Bohjalian “has developed a graceful hand at thriller mechanics, smoothly shifting from Cassie’s private paranoia to the intricacies of spycraft.”

Alternate Side by Anna Quindlen; Random House, 284 pp.; fiction

An upper-class Manhattan neighborhood chooses sides after a lawyer with anger issues takes a golf club to a beloved handyman’s leg in a fight over a parking spot.

Paste BN says ★★★. “Captures the angst and anxiety of modern life. … Quindlen’s book reads like a metaphor for our divisive times.”

The Stowaway: A Young Man’s Extraordinary Adventure to Antarctica by Laurie Gwen Shapiro; Simon & Schuster, 256 pp.; non-fiction

Tells the true story of young, indefatigable Billy Gawronski, who in 1928 was determined to sneak aboard Richard Byrd’s ship bound for the South Pole.

Paste BN says ★★★½. “Excellent. … The Stowaway is a must-read for all polar exploration enthusiasts and lovers of well-told adventure stories.”

Chicago by David Mamet; Custom House, 332 pp.; fiction

Mobsters and newspapermen populate this Prohibition-era murder mystery set in a Chicago soaked in hooch, prostitution and gangland crime.

Paste BN says ★★★½. “Splendid. … This novel has a romantic heart, and the emotional stakes enrich the whiskey-drenched whodunit.”

The Food Explorer: The True Adventures of a Globe-Trotting Botanist Who Transformed What America Eats by Daniel Stone; Dutton, 416 pp.; non-fiction

The story of how Department of Agriculture botanist David Fairchild transported thousands of plants to American soil between 1894 and 1904 and its ripple effect upon what we eat.

Paste BN says ★★★. “A meticulous retelling.”

Contributing reviewers: Mark Athitakis, Patty Rhule, George Petras, Brian Truitt, Ashley Day

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