The Falling Woman by Richard Farrell

Two people's lives collide in a story of aircraft disaster.  Charlie Radford is a young investigator for the national board.  His mentor has been doing this work for years and has investigated some of the most notorious airplane wrecks like the bombing of the aircraft in Locherbie, Scotland.  He tells Charlie that the work is to ask the right questions and to never make assumptions.  Only believe the evidence regardless of what others around you are saying.

Erin is a passenger on a cross country flight.  Her life has been in turmoil for the past year.  Her twin daughters have started college.  She had an affair.  Shortly afterward, she got cancer and has been undergoing treatment.  Finishing that, she is in remission and decides to fly to a cancer survivor retreat to decide what she wants to do with what remains of her life.

The flight is not smooth and halfway through, over a cornfield in the middle of the country, the airplane falls apart, the wreckage stretching for miles.   There aren't survivors or are there?  There is a persistent rumor that one woman fell from the sky still in her seat and survived, going to the hospital but with such light injuries that she is able to leave the next morning.  Is that true?

Charlie is surprised and proud to be on the team who goes to the site to investigate the wreck.  He is surprised that his mentor has been overlooked and is not heading up the investigation.  Instead, he is working for a man new to heading up such newsworthy investigations and who is a micromanager.  He decides early on that the woman who survived is real and tasks Charlie with finding out who she is and how she survived.

Richard Farrell has written an absorbing account of how an airline investigation after an incident proceeds.  It highlights the joy of finding a survivor and how such a person is thrust into the limelight and also discusses the rights of a person to remain private in the midst of a clamor for their story.  Both Charlie and Erin grow as individuals and the lessons they learn are ones that will change their lives.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.