The Last Flight

If Claire is the novel’s hero, Eva is its tragedy. Where Claire makes all the right decisions for a college-educated woman and ends up in the wrong place, Eva James, who is brutally honest about her life, makes all the wrong decisions, but only when she comes under the influence of men. Her college boyfriend coaxes her to use her chemistry knowledge to make money in an underground drug syndicate and then betrays her to the college administration; Dex, whose identity she does not even know, plays on her economic straits to pull her even deeper into his drug empire, using her like a commodity always with the threat of killing her; and Agent Castro, though a bit better intentioned, is nevertheless bent on using Eva to further an investigation critical to his own agency status.

It is her friendship with Liz, the visiting professor, that finally reveals to Eva that the choices she has made are not her only choices. In Liz, Eva taps into what life has long denied her: friendship, trust, and love. Eva, who grew up in foster care because her own mother had a drug addiction, is by necessity scrappy and resourceful. Recognizing this, Liz urges Eva to do what Claire elects to do: stand up and be heard by defining herself rather than allowing toxic men to define her. Eva’s tragedy is that does not heed this advice but instead runs, believing in The Pretty Lie of Escape. In engineering the whole switching-identity caper, she symbolically dooms herself, manipulating another victimized woman for her own ends. Nevertheless, the novel is realistic about Eva’s plight and does not condemn her for this, allowing her death to facilitate Claire’s freedom. 

Rory Cook, Claire’s abusive husband, is a largely static and flat antagonist eager to use and abuse the women whose only mistake in judgment is to fall for his charm. He knows only self-preservation; the women in his life are at best pretty ornaments, at worse commodities.

The scion of a wealthy family and the director of an international network of charity foundations, Rory has the education, the wealth, and the pedigree to do real good. The name “Rory” comes from the Gaelic meaning “king,” and that is how Rory acts. The charities his foundation helps—environmental activism, inner city education reforms, small business loans to revitalize urban neighborhoods—make his character darkly ironic. He is a pretty face and charismatic presence in fundraising events, his reputation so established that Claire doesn’t dare do anything but cover her bruises and smile for the paparazzi. Like Dex, Rory illustrates The Corrosive Effects of Secrets. He skates through life pretending to be what others think he is, all the while exercising brutal control over the women he uses: his first wife whom he kills, his mistress whom he coerces into being his alibi, and ultimately Claire, who must say the right things at all the right times for the sake of his career. His downfall, ensured by a triangulation of women, marks the book’s brightest emotional moment. Nothing shines more than the dark empty rooms of the Cook Foundation, its director under indictment, where Claire visits before departing for her new life in California.