From Publishers Weekly
Hospital (Oyster) is a writer of many gifts; her dark imagination, astute insights into societal interactions and the supple beauty of her prose, provide an irresistible combination. This latest novel is an enthralling tale about the intertwined fates of the survivors and the relatives of those who perished on Flight 64, hijacked by terrorists in 1987. The dysfunctional life of Lowell Hawthorne, a divorced father of two children, is rooted in his mother's death on that flight when he was a teenager ("every year, as September approaches, he believes he has put it all behind him, he believes he has laid the ghosts, he believes he will feel nothing but a dull, almost pleasurable sort of pain, like a toothache. And then: shazam, he is a wreck again"). Hawthorne is also tormented by the fact that his estranged father, an intelligence agent, may have had some knowledge of the hijacking before it happened. When Hawthorne's father dies suddenly under suspicious circumstances and Hawthorne starts getting phone calls from Samantha, one of the 40 children who survived the fatal flight (they were released before the plane was blown up), Hawthorne is finally forced to confront his demons. Together, Hawthorne and Samantha go on a dangerous quest to discover the truth behind the disaster and to understand why there was an apparent government coverup in its aftermath. In intense, lyrical prose, Hospital introduces seemingly disparate characters and places and connects them through an elaborate and poignantly tragic plot, only disrupted by the distracting inclusion of overelaborate descriptions of terrorist tactics. In this age of global terrorism, Hospital's sophisticated psychological thriller offers a thought-provoking glimpse of the sociopolitical intricacies of the individuals and organizations that track terrorism, as well as of the enduring personal struggles of those left behind after an attackCopyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
*Starred Review* Hospital's last novel, the hypnotic Oyster (1998), used the idea of millennium fever to explore the lure of cults. Drawing again on what we fear most in the world around us, she turns this time to terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. Lowell is a single father whose mother died when terrorists hijacked an Air France plane she was on in 1987. That event continues to haunt him and the other children of the victims, one of whom, Samantha, is convinced that the whole story of the hijacking has never been told and wants Lowell's help in unearthing it. When Lowell's father, a CIA agent, dies suspiciously and leaves his son incriminating evidence about the U.S.' role in Air France 64, Lowell reluctantly joins forces with Sam. Although it sounds like a high-concept thriller, Hospital's novel is nothing like that. Jumping between multiple characters' points of view, she focuses not only on the horror of the actual events but also on the even more terrible horror of how such events force us to face the world. Much of this novel is excruciatingly painful--especially the videotaped transcripts of the hijack victims' deaths from chemical weapons--but the pain is never gratuitous or sensationalistic. Hospital asks us to confront a world where government "intelligence" has become the ultimate weapon of mass destruction, but she shows us that destruction in the most intimate of terms. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Times Literary Supplement
One of the most powerful and innovative writers in English today.


Los Angeles Times
A writer of high tension and terrifying allure.


Kirkus Reviews starred review, 1 May 2003
Strong stuff; and accomplished fusion of doomsday thriller and mordant morality play.


Rosellen Brown
This is a rich and powerfully imagined novel of chilling timeliness.


Kirkus Reviews starred review
Strong stuff; and accomplished fusion of doomsday thriller and mordant morality play.


Rosellen Brown
This is a rich and powerfully imagined novel of chilling timeliness.


San Francisco Chronicle
In this bracing, visceral thriller...Hospital continually locates, in human events, the unyieldingly human experience.


Book Description
A major literary voice spins a psychological terror tale in the mode of John Le Carré. Lowell, a single father, is haunted by the memory of a hijacked Paris-New York flight on which his mother was killed when he was a teenager. A stranger, Samantha, has recently begun harassing him with phone calls about information from declassified documents. She is obsessed with learning the whole truth about Air France 64. "I was on that flight. I was six years old. I have a right," she says. "What can be worse than not knowing?" Janette Turner Hospital's electrifying new novel is a tightly woven web of familial and national histories, of sexual and political passions, and of individual and national complicities in the age of terrorism. She probes with astonishing acuity the murky worlds of espionage and intelligence gathering, and the painful meaning of survival.


About the Author
Janette Turner Hospital is the author of nine books of fiction. Originally from Australia, she now lives and teaches at the University of South Carolina at Columbia.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

From the author of the critically acclaimed novels Oyster and The Last Magician comes a psychological suspense tale that crystallizes our deepest hopes and fears for the twenty-first century. Lowell, a single father, is haunted by the memory of a hijacked Paris -- New York flight on which his mother was killed when he was a teenager. A stranger, Samantha, has recently begun harassing him with phone calls about information from declassified documents. She is obsessed with learning the whole truth about Air France 64. "I was on that flight. I was six years old. I have a right," she says. "What can be worse than not knowing?" It is the death of Lowell's father, and his legacy of a blue sports bag crammed with documents and videotapes, that finally convinces Lowell to join Samantha's search for a shadowy figure called Salamander, a man she believes was a sinister key figure in the tragedy. Janette Turner Hospital's electrifying new novel is a tightly woven web of familial and national histories, of sexual and political passions, and of individual and national complicities in the age of terrorism. In this murky world of endless aliases and surveillance, who can be trusted? When does the quest for truth become a dangerous obsession? When does the assembling of facts tip into paranoia? And what difference can the truth make? Hospital probes with astonishing acuity the worlds of espionage and intelligence gathering, and the painful meaning of survival.

FROM THE CRITICS

The New York Times

Using the form of a politico-literary thriller, Janette Turner Hospital has attempted a metaphysical novel of evil. In this case, as in some of her previous work, notably the mesmeric novel The Last Magician, the subject is the nightmare of power. Due Preparations for the Plague -- the title and the frequent quotes from Camus indicate the author's larger intentions -- is a descent through Dantean circles of governmental conspiracy and betrayal. — Richard Eder

The Los Angeles Times

… Hospital has wrought from tragedy a life-affirming tale, asking in the end, as Samantha does, a highly personal question that arises from public tragedy: "[H]ow do we ready ourselves for what might happen tomorrow? What possible preparations can be made?" — Paula L. Woods

Publishers Weekly

Hospital (Oyster) is a writer of many gifts; her dark imagination, astute insights into societal interactions and the supple beauty of her prose, provide an irresistible combination. This latest novel is an enthralling tale about the intertwined fates of the survivors and the relatives of those who perished on Flight 64, hijacked by terrorists in 1987. The dysfunctional life of Lowell Hawthorne, a divorced father of two children, is rooted in his mother's death on that flight when he was a teenager ("every year, as September approaches, he believes he has put it all behind him, he believes he has laid the ghosts, he believes he will feel nothing but a dull, almost pleasurable sort of pain, like a toothache. And then: shazam, he is a wreck again"). Hawthorne is also tormented by the fact that his estranged father, an intelligence agent, may have had some knowledge of the hijacking before it happened. When Hawthorne's father dies suddenly under suspicious circumstances and Hawthorne starts getting phone calls from Samantha, one of the 40 children who survived the fatal flight (they were released before the plane was blown up), Hawthorne is finally forced to confront his demons. Together, Hawthorne and Samantha go on a dangerous quest to discover the truth behind the disaster and to understand why there was an apparent government coverup in its aftermath. In intense, lyrical prose, Hospital introduces seemingly disparate characters and places and connects them through an elaborate and poignantly tragic plot, only disrupted by the distracting inclusion of overelaborate descriptions of terrorist tactics. In this age of global terrorism, Hospital's sophisticated psychological thriller offers a thought-provoking glimpse of the sociopolitical intricacies of the individuals and organizations that track terrorism, as well as of the enduring personal struggles of those left behind after an attack. (July) Forecast: Though Hospital is better known in Canada and Europe than in the U.S., this new book, with its timely theme, could be her breakthrough here, aided by an eight-city author tour. Foreign rights have already been sold in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and U.K.. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

In this literary thriller about international terrorism, a 1987 CIA-sponsored hijacking goes tragically wrong, leaving a profound mark both on those who survived and on the family members of those who didn't. Thirteen years after the hijacking of Air France 64, Lowell Hawthorne, whose mother perished on the flight, receives a call from survivor Samantha Raleigh, one of the children released by the hijackers before they blew up the plane. Samantha wants to talk about the tragedy, but Lowell is adept at avoiding his feelings and puts her off for months. Then his father, a former CIA official, dies under mysterious circumstances and leaves him a bag filled with journals and videotapes about the incident. Evading shadowy operatives intent on reclaiming the material, Samantha and Lowell finally get together and discover the truth about the hijacking, a truth more personal and painful than they could have ever imagined. Writing in the shadow of September 11, Hospital has crafted a novel of fiercely powerful emotions and deeply unsettling implications that is not so much a departure from her earlier works (e.g., Oyster; Dislocations) as an extension of their psychological probing. Recommended for public libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 2/15/03.]-Lawrence Rungren, Merrimack Valley Lib. Consortium, Andover, MA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews