Sole Survivor (Hardcover, Turtleback School & Library ed.)

The story begins with a catastrophic, unexplainable plane crash. Three hundred and thirty dead, no survivors. Among the victims, the wife and two young daughters of Los Angeles Post crime reporter Joe Carpenter. A year later, still gripped by an almost paralyzing grief, unable to work, unable to imagine any relief but his own death, Joe encounters a woman named Rose. She claims to have survived the crash, and holds out a tantalizing possibility: a secret that will bring Joe peace of mind. But before he can ask any questions, she slips away. Driven now by rage (have the authorities withheld information from the families of the victims?) and a hope almost as unbearable as his grief (if there really was one survivor, could there have been others?), Joe sets out to find the woman: "The resolution of this mystery was his mission, his purpose, and perhaps an unknowable redemption." But his search immediately leads him into the path of a powerful and shadowy organization hell-bent on stopping Rose before she can reveal what she knows about the crash. And Joe's connection to her - the nature of which he comes to understand only by inches - makes him part of the quarry. The novel unfolds at a heart-stopping pace as a desperate chase and a shattering emotional odyssey lead Joe to a truth that will force him to reassess everything he thought he knew about life and death - a truth that, given the chance, will rock the world and redefine the destiny of humanity.