Framed for the brutal attack on her manager, indie rock legend Red Nelson flees to the only family she doesn't yet know: her estranged sister, Kate Fisher, a Search & Rescue pilot working the remote mountains of upper New York State. Kate, the daughter of her father's legitimate but unhappy marriage, has no wish to meet Red, the product of her father's passionate love affair, but when Kate's daughter, Molly, decides to hide Red on their property, concern over Molly's safety forces Kate to stage a rescue and repair the broken but longed-for family she comes from. A Woman's Guide to Search & Rescue explores the unexpected gift of found family in times of loss and tragedy, the forging of new relationship between two related strangers, and the discovery by three women of different generations who learn that by saving each other, they save themselves.
"About music and love and who-and what-has gone missing from our lives and how we desperately try to get it all back. Gorgeously written . . . as astonishing as it is real." -Caroline Leavitt, New York Times best-selling author
"An exciting work of survival fiction with strong female characters." --Kirkus Reviews
Framed for the brutal attack on her manager, indie rock legend Red Nelson flees to the only family she doesn't yet know: her estranged sister, Kate Fisher, a Search & Rescue pilot working the remote mountains of upper New York State. Kate, the daughter of her father's legitimate but unhappy marriage, has no wish to meet Red, the product of her father's passionate love affair, but when Kate's daughter, Molly, decides to hide Red on their property, concern over Molly's safety forces Kate to stage a rescue and repair the broken but longed-for family she comes from. A Woman's Guide to Search & Rescue explores the unexpected gift of found family in times of loss and tragedy, the forging of new relationship between two related strangers, and the discovery by three women of different generations who learn that by saving each other, they save themselves.
"About music and love and who-and what-has gone missing from our lives and how we desperately try to get it all back. Gorgeously written . . . as astonishing as it is real." -Caroline Leavitt, New York Times best-selling author
"An exciting work of survival fiction with strong female characters." --Kirkus Reviews
Red Nelson hadnât counted on crosswinds. Panther Gorgeâs meadow looked so neat on the map, but the small plane bucked as it descended between the jagged cliffs and craggy trees on either side, way too close to the ground to be stable. Before she could stall or be dashed against the rocks, she angled the nose of the Piper Cub towards the meadowâs center and came in deliberately steep and fast. Wind outside the cockpit keened past her ears as the ground rushed up, and for a moment her fingers gripped the yoke harder, twitched towards the throttle, to pull up, abandon the plan.
But she knew it was too late to change her mind.
Her father talked about crashes. How a stunt flyer could anticipate it, the point where everything was out of the pilotâs hands and the plane took over. Red wondered what her dad did when the ground rushed up too fast or a spin started that couldnât be stopped. Who did he pray to? Her mind frantically scanned the short list of prayer-worthy souls she could call onâher desperately ill mother? The sister she hadnât ever met? Nobody could rescue her, that was clear. She braced herself, as she always did, and pulled back. Felt icy sweat bathe her arms, nausea churn her gut. Then the concussion of the impact, a small machine meeting rocky ground at high speed, vibrating from the soles of her boots to the palms of her hands.
The cockpit swung crazily as the tiny aircraft slammed down, and the metal cocoon around her shuddered, thrusting her forward in her seat. The plane bounced twice, catching a clutch of tree branches, and Red felt the tearing sound as it skidded to a stop. The engine coughed only once before it died.
Then all was quiet.
Red sat, breathing hard. She ached in a hundred places, but she hadnât hit her head, a damn miracle. Sheâd heard the crunch of landing gear. When she peered out the tiny window into the twilight air, she saw the rocksâboulders almostâ scattered across the field. Around her spread a stark wilderness such as sheâd never seen, a northern wilderness: the narrow meadow lay dusky and deserted, except for the snaking river that had guided her in. She remembered how it had caught the sunset from the air, glittering like stage lights. The High Peaks of the Adirondacks loomed darkly over her, and she thought of their names, learned from the map: Giant, Mount Marcy, Algonquin. All watching her, huge masses against the last light.
She released her fingers from the yoke, her whole body shaking from the effort of hours in the air, and patted the Piperâs silent black dials. Twelve hours had passed. More. She couldnât see past the blur of images sheâd run with. Theyâd have found Vern by now, her sweet ex-husbandâs face pressed to the green carpet of the backstage dressing room. The thin slip of saliva near his bruised mouth, the huge hands unnaturally still. Soon someone would discover her car at the airport parking lot, and Vernâs new plane missing.
But nobody would know for certain where she was. Her mother would never tell. Not even a word to Alex, the woman Red had loved for years.
The gust of her sad exhale briefly fogged the planeâs wind-screen. She shivered once, violently, lonelier than sheâd ever been. Sheâd need to find safe transportâif she could be that lucky. Until then, food and shelter, warmer clothes than the jeans and hoodie grabbed from backstage. Much colder here than back home in North Carolina; probably dip to twenty degrees by midnight. Her pilotâs jacket hung behind the cockpit seat, and she reached for it, feeling the stiffness in her forearms from gripping the yoke. She pulled on the jacket, then searched under the seat for the spare wool hat and extra gloves sheâd stashed at one of her fuel stops.
Only last night, sheâd been lauded on Twitter, rocking a sold-out club in Charlotte, grinning at Alex across the stage. Tonight, they should be playing Nashville.
Instead, she sat in the middle of the Adirondacks, in a busted plane, following her dying motherâs wish. Running from her own life.
Red could smell gasoline as soon as she crawled out of the cockpit into the cold night air. She clicked on her flashlight and got to work examining the plane. The landing gear, nestled against one of the bigger boulders, was completely crushed. Even if she could get help repairing itâand where would that happen?âit was doubtful the Piper could manage a takeoff from the meadow. Vern loved this new plane, mortgaged his soul for it, but he wouldnât care now. She swallowed at that, then scolded herself. Easing her way around the wings and fuselage in the half dark, she carefully felt for damage there too, sucking in her breath as her hand encountered a jagged tear. Her fingers came away wet.
She knew what happened next. Both her parents were pilots, both full of stories about dangers of explosion. How fragile an aircraft could be, how buoyancy in the air made it vulnerable on the ground. Too soon, if her rotten luck continued, fuel would stream through the opening, saturating the field around the plane. Worse if there was a short. And, sure enough, as Red reached back into the cockpit, scrambling for her gear, the landing and avionics panel lights flickered.
Cursing, she slammed the cockpit door and angled her flashlight into the dark field, stepping carefully until she stood a safe distance from the aircraft.
The October moon had not yet risen. Wind was calmer now, but it still blew in clouds, carrying the scent of rain and the remnants of the squall sheâd passed through before landing. A cold gust scoured her cheeks. An electrical short could ignite that gasoline in a heartbeat. The little fires sheâd set as a teenager with her friend Billy, just for fun, became dangerous sometimesâbecause Billy liked dangerâbut never deadly. Except the one that blazed out of control, that burned the building when she was fifteen, Billy sixteen. She couldnât forget that one. She remembered watching it, standing so close she felt the hair on her bare arms crackle.
As if it read her thoughts, there came the first whoosh of flame, a burst of brightness blooming beneath the engine compartment. And despite herself, despite the danger she knewâshe did!âRed clicked off her flashlight for an instant, no more. Just to watch, like she had as a teenager, to become transfixed by how fire illuminated everything: the field, the trees, the sleeves of her jacket.
Soon the smoke billowed, black and noxious, and she shook herself from the trance. Donât be a fool, she told herself. Git.
She hoisted her backpack and ran across the field, her long red hair flying behind her. The heavy load bounced against one shoulder, making her unsteady. Stupid not to take a minute to strap the pack on properly, but no time to fix it. Panic filled her now; every second counted. She hadnât figured on the rocks near the river, their surfaces grown slippery with evening dew. She hopped from stone to stone as carefully as she could, aware of the growing heat of the fire on her back, how it lit up the woods ahead of her.
âGo, go,â she chanted, a fast-beat song to will her sturdy boots to find footing.
North Carolina caught plenty an unwary pilot in its sudden coastal storms. Redâs father taught her how to smell them coming, fly to their edge but not beyond. All part of her stunt training. Yankee weather had given her no such warning. Sheâd been taken by surprise twenty air minutes before she reached her chosen landing field, remote enough to hide a small plane, all Google-mapped during the flight. Descending below the weather, she saw Panther as a good alternative, a welcoming hole in the mountainous landscape, a place to wait out the storm. Another grave mistake to add to her tally.
Too many of them now. Almost to the riverbank, she heard the explosion. A sudden twist to look back, to be sure she was far enough away, and her foot slipped on a rock, almost as if the force of the blast pushed her. She fell, crashing against a granite boulder. The backpack fell too, its contents scattering.
A sharp pain shot from her left ankle, and in the intense firelight she saw the new rip in her jeans near the calf. Then a small patch of dark blood. But the noise of the fire frightened her more than any wound. In seconds, the few flames had become an inferno.
She scrambled in the half-light for her belongings, gathering them as fast as she could, and hefted the pack back onto her shoulder. Her left ankle throbbed. A serious sprain, maybe a break, but no time to tend to that either. She pushed herself to a stand and hopped down the muddy bank to the riverâs gravel edge.
The field around the Piper burned fast and hot with the twilight windsâfat, fiery devils chased each other to the trees that lined the riverbank. If they caught, they could torch out, sending sparks hundreds of feet highâsomething else sheâd learned from her familyâs flying stories, their Search & Rescue adventures. All those stories scared her now. The shadowed rush of river in front of her offered a few stepping stones, and she tried to keep her weight light on her injured foot as she left the gravel and entered the water. But with each step, the pain almost toppled her, and the depth of the river threatened to sweep her off her feet. Finally, she gained the opposite bank where she let herself huddle on a flat rock to catch her breath. One finger touched to her aching leg came away wet and sticky. She searched in her backpack for a spare T-shirt and eased up her pant leg, then wrapped the shirt around the gash and secured it with a rough knot.
Shivering, she tried to remember her life just eight hours ago. Taking off from the small airport near Charlotte, signing Vernâs name to the flight plan, hearing her motherâs gravelly voice through the phone relaying the coordinates of her half sisterâs home in the Adirondack mountains. âBlood tells, my darling,â her mother promised. âKate will take care of you. No one will suspect youâre there. Not even Billy Cotton.â
But Kate didnât know Red existed. And Billy, still in prison, evidently had arms long enough to reach Vern, to do such unspeakable things to him. Why wouldnât he find her wherever she ran? She shouldnât have escaped the attack backstage. But she had. And what awaited her now?
Smoke from the burning plane filled the air, clouding her view of the meadow behind her. She coughed hard, the poisonous taste almost gagging her, and sank her sleeve into the river to press to her mouth and nose. As her head cleared, another realization hit her. The riverbank sheâd just climbed down, her boots uneven in mudâshe had left prints. Probably all over the edge. âGo carefully, my darling,â her mother had whispered. âLeave no trace.â Fool that she was, sheâd practically carved her name in the rocks of this remote meadow. She angled her flashlight across the bank and saw one full print in the mud near the gravel. In her rush to escape the fire, sheâd stepped off the rocks and into the soft muck.
Dismayed, she stared at it. Maybe she could rest here until the fire died down, then slip back, somehow erase the print. But no. There were probably more. Too chancy to delay any longer, to risk discovery by local searchersâsure to be onsite by daylight, if she could believe her momâsoon followed by National Transportation Safety Board investigators and police. Better to press on. Maybe any search dogs would lose her trail if she kept to the shallows of the riverâs edge. The map said sheâd need to follow the river through the forest, climb past Giant Mountainâs false summit, then head down to the state road, about nine miles total. Thunder rumbled above her, the mountains echoing, and Red felt the first raindrops.
âGet going,â she told herself. But when she set the sole of her left boot on the ground, pain from her ankle shot clear to her hip.
A thick branch lay near the black water. She grabbed it. Held under her arm, it barely supported her weight. She moved down the riverbed as carefully and quickly as she could. Behind her, the wreckage of the Piperâand the life sheâd leftâblazed in the dark.Â
When the opportunity arose to review Mary Carroll Moore's The Woman's Guide to Search & Rescue I thought I was picking up a non-fiction title (having missed the small inclusion of "a novel" in the thumbnail's footer). After realising my mistake I decided to continue reading, hooked by a dramatic opening scene featuring protagonist and indie rockstar, Red Nelson.
Shortly after crashing a stolen plane we learn of Red's predicament. Framed for a violent attack she didn't commit by the real perpetrator, longstanding criminal Billy Cotton, Red turns to her search and rescue pilot step sister, Kate Fisher and her daughter, Molly, for help. Their challenge is twofold, proving Red's innocence and locking up Billy for good. However, as family tensions heat up and physical injuries take hold, it quickly becomes apparent there can only be one winner in this epic battle of cat and mouse and, when it comes to defeat, Billy is not a man used to losing...
The premise of this book is interesting, playing against the relationships of blended female generations who are linked by the same patriarchal figurehead. Personalities are distinct between the core characters and Moore does a great job in building tension and raising stakes within action sequences.
In A Woman's Guide to Search & Rescue there is a lack of strong subplots to keep driving the underlying story of Red evading capture. The need of an additional storyline during the middle lull was particularly needed after the sudden appearance of Billy (an event that occurs earlier in the story than most comparative titles would normally address). This, as well as perhaps a few too many characters within the story, some of which appearing sporadically as means to unlock elements of the plot and little else.
A Woman's Guide to Search & Rescue is worthwhile a read for those who enjoy stories featuring intergenerational relationships. Moore's talent as an author shows in the writing quality and scene setting which are well executed throughout. However, in this case, it is the pacing of the story itself that would make me more prescriptive with the type of reader I recommend this title to.
AEB Reviews