Before the Fall

From the creator and writer of the Emmy Award-winning series Fargo, based on the Oscar-winning Coen Brothers film. The rich are different. But fate is blind. Struggling artist Scott Burroughs was going to take the ferry back to New York before being offered a spare seat on the Whitehead family's private jet. Just minutes after take-off, Scott and the Whiteheads' small son, JJ, are the only survivors of a terrifying crash, and Scott must make an epic swim to shore to save the boy's life. The heroic nature of JJ's rescue, combined with the fact that his father David was the CEO of TV news channel ALC, means that Scott has no chance of returning to anonymity. For ALC has never been content merely to report the news. Populist presenter Bill Cunningham sets out to makethe news. Who else was on the plane? Was there a bomb, a missile? Who had a motive for bringing it down? Who exactly is Scott Burroughs? As the gripping official investigation begins, it is overtaken by a maelstrom of speculation, with an exhausted Scott and the orphaned boy at its centre. Drawing together with masterful skill the threads of many lives that intersect at tragedy, Noah Hawley has created a thrilling novel about love, fame, fear, grief, wealth, inequality, art, entertainment and power - and most of all, about the human need for storytelling.