The Business Trip by Jessie Garcia | Same Plane, Same Man, Same Silence

REVIEW

Jessie Garcia’s The Business Trip is the gripping, page-turning debut that hooked me from the plane ride itself. Stephanie and Jasmine have nothing and everything in common. The two women don’t know each other but are on the same plane. Stephanie is on a business trip, and Jasmine is fleeing an abusive relationship. That parallel setup is instantly addictive, and Garcia uses it to build a slow burn that turns into a free fall.

After a few days, they text their friends the same exact messages about the same man; the messages becoming stranger and more erratic. And then the two women vanish. The texts go silent, the red flags go up, and the panic sets in. When Stephanie and Jasmine are each declared missing and in danger, it begs the question: Who is Trent McCarthy? What did he do to these women, or what did they do to him? It’s a clever device, because you’re reading two disappearances that mirror each other, and you can’t tell if you’re watching a predator or a set-up.

Garcia layers twist upon twist where nothing is as it seems, taking you on a descent into the depths of a mastermind manipulator. But who is playing who? The multicast narration, which won an AudioFile Earphones Award, adds great depth and lets you immerse yourself in well-defined characters, and on the page it still moves fast. The middle gets a little busy with the dual timelines syncing up, and Trent’s motivations are murkier than I wanted, which is why I land at 3.5 instead of 4.

Still, for a debut, it’s stunning and accomplished, with hugely relatable characters and an addictive storyline that kept me turning pages well into the night. As the jacket says, “Stephanie and Jasmine have nothing and everything in common.” That line stays true until the very last page.

Content and Trigger Warnings

• Abusive relationship/fleeing abuse
• stalking/mastermind manipulator
• missing persons/declared missing and in danger
• erratic messages/psychological manipulation
• same plane disappearance/texts go silent/red flags
• emotional abuse

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• The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine
• The Housemaid by Freida McFadden
• The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian

 

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