I was intrigued by the concept of this book -- a man meets a mysterious woman on a layover at the Atlanta airport. They share drinks and conversation, the woman disappears and then turns up on TV as a missing person! I really wanted to like this, but found myself annoyed by it. What kind of person leaves their job and hops on a plane to follow a stranger that they just met? I always hate characters that repeatedly make stupid decisions. It's hard to care about what happens to them. It was a quick read, but I didn't love it.

Well this takes the whole concept of "meet cute" to a whole new level!

After a chance encounter with a mysterious woman at an airport bar, business traveler Joshua is smitten (obsessed?) with Morgan, which the reader will guess has some secrets to keep. Once he discovers she is "presumed missing" based on a news report, and then her Facebook page, Joshua makes it his mission to seek her out and help her, believing she is in some kind of trouble. And now he will be too.

Coincidentally, Morgan's old boss Giles Caldwell is also missing, with his very aggressive brother Simon searching for Meghan and the object she took from his brother's house.

While the idea of Joshua investigating, travelling and finding Morgan (ahead of the cops) is too winsome to be believable, it somehow worked, because it puts us on the trail with him to find out what really happened, and how the case will unravel. Because Joshua is presented as the perfect gentleman, with good intentions, it keeps his hunt for Morgan from becoming stalkerish. Even if you want to smack him upside the head, lol!

In The Layover, Joshua Fields is heading to another business trip in another city, something he is constantly doing, yet doesn’t enjoy. He feels like his life is on autopilot, and he is just going through the motions, not really living life. By chance, he meets beautiful, mysterious Morgan Reynolds, and there is an instant connection. They meet for a drink, she gives him a passionate kiss, then disappears. Suddenly, he sees her face on the TV screen, as a missing person. What follows is a cat and mouse chase between Joshua, Morgan, and several police.
I really tried to like the story, but found Joshua to be so naively clueless. Morgan always hurt him and ran away, yet he kept going back for more. At least his relationship with his dad was something I could appreciate in the story.

I am honestly shocked that this was described as a high concept thriller in the blurb. It's not even close to high concept. It's not even thrilling, for that matter.

Perhaps I'm smoking something different than the rest, but I found this book to be amateurish and annoying.

The hero - for one - is a complete dumb bunny. He has absolutely no drive or ambition, just takes handouts from his father and whines about having to work in commercial real estate development (he's so deep - he needs a job with meaning). At a time when most people his age are struggling to find work, the guy is rolling in cash and living in the beautiful city of Chicago, with a perfectly nice girlfriend and a supportive Dad. I mean, c'mon guy, you're SET FOR LIFE. I understand wanting to find some sort of value in what you do, but perhaps count your blessings and look for that value outside of work? Volunteer? Read a book? Learn to bake? Take a walk? Anything.

So he's on one of his boring work trips, forced to fly across country to make yet another million, when he meets a "mysterious" woman named Morgan in an airport bar. I put mysterious in quotation marks because she's wearing sunglasses indoors, so this dumb sh*t thinks that means she's an International spy or something. They have multiple drinks (it's like 9am at this point) and they get into some faux-deep philosophy about their lives and choices. Morgan has absolutely nothing of interest to say, but she's thin and pretty and seems frightened, which produces a boner in him that just won't quit. Seriously, the thing is made of titanium. Because when she tells him she never wants to see him again and gets on a plane, what does he do?

HE FOLLOWS HER.

When she tells him she never wants to see him again, AGAIN, what does he do?

HE CONTINUES TO FOLLOW HER.

When she leaves him high and dry in a hotel room, what does he do?

I'll give you a guess but do you even need one?

All this is wrapped around a "mystery" that is so exhaustively boring it defies description. Clearly Ms. Indoor Sunglasses is on the run from something, but it never materializes into anything shocking or creepy. There's also a female cop, who provides a modicum of relief from Joshua's reeking sense of male entitlement but she's also one-note and concerned either with her upcoming promotion or the lack of time she spends with her teenage daughter. Nice!

I don't even remember the ending and I read it like 2 days ago. So. That's about it?

Oh wait, one last note to Joshua. When a woman tells you "no", believe her. Do not follow her onto a plane and then act put-out when she's not thrilled to see your unwelcome ass. You're not a nice guy, you're gross, and it's time you knew it. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. As you can tell, I took that literally and will continue to do so! It's always nice to have the the chance to read books, even if they don't turn out to be ones I enjoy. Long live authors!

I started Layover thinking that the storyline had potential, but I wasn't sure if it would keep my attention. Boy, was I wrong. David Bell takes a story you think you may have heard before and really makes it his own. Immediate connections, so many questions, and a chase across the country... you really don't know what's coming next, but you'll never see the end coming.

Definitely recommend. Fast-paced and fun read.

*Read via Netgalley.

WOW! I'm really glad I finished this book......and not in a good way. Joshua meets a girl in an airport and they have an immediate connection, so he postpones his business trip and follows her...and follows her.....and follows her. NOT in a stalker, creepy way, but in a stupid, naive, annoying way. Obviously, I had little patience with Joshua.

We meet Joshua in the hospital recovering from what appears to be a fight with someone who clearly got the better of him. What happened? What begins as a surprising mystery/suspense novel just becomes frustrating as Joshua (following what? some sexual attraction?) just keeps doing exactly what Morgan (if that's even her name) seems to want him to do. She really gives him no reason to keep following her. She's obviously hiding something AND the police are after her, as well as this creepy guy. Yes, Joshua is dissatisfied with his life & his job and looking for some meaning in his life, but his reactions to this girl are just ridiculous.

SPOILER: The ending is so ridiculously predictable and unbelievably "happy" that I really can't believe I stuck with this book. I was really hoping for some "Gone Girl" like twist that just didn't come. SIGH.

Despite all this, I'm glad I read it since I've seen some positive reviews and advertising. Clearly I missed something that appealed to others.

An excellent thriller about a guy who meets a woman during a layover in Atlanta airport and gets involved with a lot more than he planned. This book was non-stop action and I did not put it down until I finished it in one day.

What a great book! First for me from this author, but wont be the last. Love how he weaves a story and makes it so believable. Keep me wanting more! Would recommend this book


Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for an early release of this book.

review to post online June 10 2019

I am enjoying the suspense/thriller genre over the past few years because they aren't supposed to put me to sleep with facts and minutia, but this one was a little more wordy with a lot less suspense. Maybe that is what "high concept" means in the blurb, I am not sure. This story was about a chance meeting at an airport between a totally boring dude who is completely bored with life in general and meets a mysterious girl with a floppy hat in an airport. He becomes a creeper and stalks her and feels like one good kiss means he should ignore the very important business meeting he is supposed to go to with his boring dad and follow this girl from the bathroom to a different flight. She tells him to get the heck away from her and yet he still continues to follow her around.



If you ignore the fact that none of this would happen in real life then you can try and appreciate the other narrative of the detective in charge of tracking down the same person that is the creepy guy's new love interest. Turns out Morgan is a missing girl possibly responsible for the disappearance of her ex-boss and now the creepy dude doesn't know if she is a good person or a bad person or just really good in bed.



All in all, an interesting plot but personally I find it hard to "care" when the characters themselves do not offer any reason for me to root for them. There was no real reason for me to like boring dude, or the person of interest Morgan, and there was not a whole lot from the detective except to hope she gets to see her kid's soccer match someday. If you are on a layover and need a quick read, this one is great for that. Plenty of concourse and terminals for your pleasure.

The mystery and intrigue is thick with this one. Layover was a slow burn thriller that raised a lot of questions for me as I read. I thought all of the characters were rather unlikable, which was an interesting dynamic. If you’re into reading a layered mystery, then this may be the book for you.

I was not familiar with David Bell's work so I wasn't sure what to expect.

This storyline grips you from the very beginning. A man wakes up in a hospital room and has no idea what happened or why the police want to talk to him. Well, that is a way to get a reader invested.

The story then flashes back and tells the story of how the man ended up in the hospital. This is a story that is full of twists and turns. There are parts of the story that are a long ways from any reality that I know so I just had to tell myself to go with it. This is a great story to get lost in.

Layover (2019)
By David Bell
Berkley/Penguin Press, 416 pages.
★★★

If you enjoy psychological thriller movies that make you bolt upright and shout, "Oh no! Do not open that door!!!" David Bell's novel Layover is like that. No matter what the medium–movies, novels, campfire tales, TV shows–such works rely upon building tension to a level where you are fully immersed in the moment. Alfred Hitchcock famously remarked, "Logic is dull." He meant this in the sense that effective melodrama goes for the gut, not the brain's logic center.

Or is it the heart? Or the gonads? Joshua Fields is pretty much the poster child for the well-scrubbed All American lad. He's considerate, altruistic, clean-cut, attractive, smart, and successful. That's not to say he doesn't have his crosses to bear. He was raised by a doting father and went into pop's real far-flung estate and development business right out of college. Joshua is making lots of money, but he's never really stretched his own wings. His job is dull, but he soldiers on because he doesn't want to disappoint his father. This takes its toll, as Joshua is a nervous flyer who needs Xanax and airport booze to get onto an airplane. He also has a longtime girlfriend, but the fire of that relationship is (at best) on smolder.

One evening he's in Atlanta waiting to change planes–the titular layover–when he meets Morgan Reynolds, an attractive young woman in her twenties. The two have a drink and part ways, but not before Morgan surprises Joshua with a body-grinding kiss that practically makes him jump out of his khakis. On impulse, Joshua decides not to meet his dad in Florida and instead finagles his way onto a flight to Nashville, which is where Morgan said she was bound. Yet when he surprises her on the airplane, the same woman claims she is not Morgan Reynolds, rings the flight attendant, and asks her to make Joshua stop harassing her.

Bummer! But when Joshua looks up her profile on Facebook–hey it's the 21st century!–there she is, along with various postings that say she's missing. Joshua tries to explain this to airport police in Nashville, who basically say she's an adult and has the right to go missing if she wishes. A rational person would move on, right? Well, that wouldn't make for much of a novel, would it? Instead, Joshua decides to investigate on his own.

Meanwhile, in (fictional) Laurel Falls, Kentucky, Detective Kimberly Givens is under pressure to locate a missing local businessman, Giles Caldwell. The mayor is up for reelection, Giles' aggressive brother Simon is raising a stink, and the mayor has pretty much ordered Givens–who was already passed over for promotion once before–to work around the clock to find Giles. That's hard to do if you're divorced and have a (barely) teenaged daughter.

The two stories will, of course, intersect. At each step of the way Joshua is warned to go back home and leave the investigation to professionals. Instead, he continues to open doors he shouldn't, even when each new one brings him more grief and places him in greater danger.

Objectively speaking, Layover is pulp fiction that frequently demands that readers suspend disbelief. Who knows? The news is filled with tales of those who have done more illogical things than Joshua, so maybe there's more verisimilitude to Bell's novel than we'd like to admit. I can say, though, that Joshua wiggles out of a few legal situations from which he'd be unlikely to walk away in real life. This is a 416-page book that feels like it's barely half that long. In otherwise, this is your proverbial page-turner. It releases in July, and I can imagine it will be a popular beach read.

David Bell is an English professor at Western Kentucky University with eight previous novels to his credit. Layover is no Woman in White. It's not even Gone Girl. But let's give Bell credit for writing a novel with great mass appeal. Sometimes all a reader wants is good juicy thriller.

Rob Weir

Note: I received an advance copy of this book from Berkeley and NetGalley to review. I note, however, that it seems to be available on Kindle.

Three stars because I did indeed “Like” it. I just couldn’t get to the next level of enjoyment.

There are a lot of problems in the story, but the biggest is that the reader doesn’t get to experience much action. We hear about it. The characters tell each other what happened but we don’t get to enjoy much of it firsthand.

I know the author is capable, because at one point several different characters go to meet in a spooky place. It’s creepy, there is danger in every corner, and there is eventually a meet-up and some action. At another point, a character is trying to escape a location without being seen, and that was also done well. But those are just about the only places in the story where we get to experience the fun ourselves.

We get to know very little about Morgan (who is one of the main characters) except for all the lies she tells. It appears she has very few friends, yet there is a lot of freak-out on her FB page when she (a single adult) “disappears” for a couple days. While there are just a few FB mentions in the beginning of the book, they really don’t match up with what we learn about Morgan later. And since we never get to know her on a personal level, we also don’t fully understand her motivations, and it is very difficult to root for her in the end, or even care about what happens to her. It seems the same goes for the author, who gives very little fanfare to her ending.

So why even give it three stars? Well, it was a fast read. It was somewhat entertaining. You want to know what happens to Josh, you want to solve the mystery, and you’d like to root for Kimberly the cop (Alas, Kimberly is a character you start to care about and then she’s just dropped at the end). It’s a good beach read, it’s a good read for in-between more meaty books. It has some fun, just don’t expect much from it.

I give the first half of this book a 4 star rating and the second half a 2 star rating so I averaged it out to a 3 start rating in the end. The description of the story immediately grabbed my attention. I wanted to know who Morgan was and what her story was. This intriguing lady also grabbed the attention of our protagonist Joshua, a man who seems like he is just straight bored with his life. The same flights, the same work, a relationship with a woman he doesn't know if he loves or not; it's no wonder when he meets Morgan for a few short minutes at the airport and she plants a kiss on him that he actually starts to have a pulse. When he later finds out that she is considered to be a missing person, he becomes obsessed with her. In an attempt to track her down, Joshua finds himself in a situation that most people would just walk away from. This book was fast-paced with very few characters so it was easy to understand and keep the facts straight. The book's ending was a bit disappointing though and left me unsatisfied.

Enjoyed this unpredictable read. Great characters thoroughly fleshed out so you felt you know them. Great ending with unexpected twists and turns to get there.

I have received this book as an ARC copy and in return will leave my honest opinion.

How have I not heard of David Bell? I know him now. Here is why you will like this book, routine shattered in a moment. A true roller coaster ride that will have you remembering why thrillers were so big just a few years ago, this story blows the average fare out of the park. Read it and it will ruin you for the average thriller today! Great story and great writing, I loved it.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my advanced copy of Layover by David Bell. This was another one that I had really high hopes about and it unfortunately just fell extremely flat. The thing that bothered me the most about this story is the sexual elements that the author keeps adding into the story that are utterly unrealistic with the plot that he's unfolding for us. The fact that this woman is obviously hiding a lot, treated this man horribly in a public setting, and is a potential criminal, yet the male character is willing to risk his entire career, relationship, etc., just to sleep with her..... no thanks. Will not be recommending this book, unfortunately.

Joshua's life has become a predictable pattern of departures and arrivals, a lot of his time spent in an airport. Then he meets Morgan during a layover, with whom he feels a deep connection. Morgan kisses Joshua just before she leaves for her flight, saying she'll never see him again. After she leaves, Joshua sees her face on the news as a missing person. In this fast paced thriller, Joshua is determined to find out why Morgan is on the run.

I appreciate that Berkley Books and Netgalley let me read an advanced copy of this title before it hits the shelves in July.

Joshua does real estate development with his father. Every week he flies to the same cities. The tedium has gotten to him and he’s sure he wants to quit his job, but hasn’t told his dad yet. In an airport gift shop, while on a layover, he meets the mysterious Morgan. They go to a bar, order drinks and have a stimulating conversation. Everything points to this being a one-time encounter until she kisses him and leaves. Now he can’t get her out of his mind. What he does next, only a smitten man would do but it feeds the plot.

I yelled at Joshua so many times “no, don’t do it” that I was almost hoarse.

David Bell writes suspense well and “Layover” is definitely a thriller. But it got a little tedious for me and the person who did the crime was surprising, but also a little contrived. But you should still read it. It’s going to top the charts because it speaks to all who would like to quit their jobs.

This book sounded intriguing, so I definitely wanted to give it a try. In it, a young man named Joshua, who is constantly traveling for his job, has a chance encounter with a mysterious woman in an airport. Although their time together is very short, Joshua decides to abandon his travel plans and try to follow her. Along the way Joshua discovers that this woman is tangled up in a disappearance, a theft, corporate intrigue, and possibly murder. If he can find her, then he believes he can help her, if only she will let him.
While I found this to be a quick, easy, and enjoyable read, I did have one big problem with the book. And that problem happened right off the bat. The whole book is constructed upon the fact that Joshua feels this undeniable connection to this woman, Morgan, which he cannot ignore. On the basis of this connection he decided to disregard his work and family obligations in order to find this woman and try to build on that. As the reader I, however, found this relationship between Joshua and Morgan to be extremely flimsy. The encountered each other VERY briefly at a gift shop, and then shared a couple of drinks at an airport bar. So, in my mind at least, they probably spent all of 45 minutes together, tops (I felt like it was more like 20 minutes). And then the reader has to believe that after this short time Joshua decides to change his flight, leave his father hanging with a very important business meeting, book a new flight that he **hopes** Morgan might be on, and then makes a fool of himself when he does manage to find her. And the whole rest of the book is just Joshua chasing Morgan around, trying to get her to let him help her.
Which leads me to my other problem with the book. Morgan did not want or need Joshua's help, and she made that very clear to him, on several occasions. She was constantly leaving him, running away from him, being rude towards him, lying to him, and trying to get him to leave her alone. If the reader is supposed to "take Joshua's side" in all of this, Morgan's actions make her seem unlikable, untrustworthy, and undeserving of his friendship and loyalty. If the reader is supposed to "take Morgan's side," her actions make Joshua look like an obsessed and stalker-like creep. So I was not really sure what to think about either one of the main characters.
The plot pacing could have been better as well. There was a big confrontation with a lot of tension and suspense, and I thought to myself, "Well, that was quick, but it's okay, this is exciting." I thought it was the big climax of the story. Then I looked and I was only about 1/2 to 2/3 of the way through the book. So then I had a sense of being let-down.
If I overlooked the fact that I did not believe Joshua had any reason to go gallivanting all over Tennessee and Kentucky chasing an ungrateful woman he'd spent about 30 minutes with, and that the same woman was an unsympathetic and unlikable character, then the book was okay. Ironically, at two different times in the book Joshua talks about picking up a mindless suspense/thriller novel in airport gift shops that he can read without much thought or effort. This book falls into that category, as well. If you want a quick easy read to while-away some time while waiting an an airport or doctor's office, then this book is for you.