Sometimes, Travel is Murder -- The Business Trip (thriller book review)

Anyone who’s ever gone on a trip knows that traveling is HARD. 

Whether trying to follow the rules and make it to the airport literally hours before your actual flight... worrying about whether or not your toiletries are “small enough” to please the TSA gods... or knowing you forgot something vitally essential back at home (be it turning a would-be flammable electrical thingy off, or packing the laptop you’re definitely gonna need)... the whole act of traveling is A LOT.

 

But one thing most of us rarely factor into that already-bonkers list of variables is... MURDER.

 

Jessie Garcia’s no-holds-barred debut, The Business Trip, seems destined to add that concern to your list of OMG-what-ifs, though.

 

 

Jasmine is like plenty of women you may have met—or not, depending on how you spend your off-hours. She’s a middle-aged bartender in a low-brow tavern in Madison, Wisconsin. She lives with a boyfriend who... well, leans way more to the negative side, if the proliferation of bruises on her is any indication. She has no family to speak of. Basically, Jasmine is just getting by... barely.

 Stephanie, meanwhile, leads what looks like—from the outside—a pretty glamorous life. She’s a director of a Madison affiliate’s TV news programming. She has her own condo—which she shares with her cat—but her marriage ended a few years ago, and her kid is now a young man, in college, off on his own. As for the dating scene, in mid-life? She’s finding it less than awesome.

 

Jasmine is taking the only chance she sees, and secretly escaping the relationship that turned out so horribly.

 

Stephanie is headed to a work conference in Southern California... one that everyone at the news station knows about, as does her neighbor, who’ll be looking after her cat. 

 

When fate puts these very different women on either side of a chatty, elderly woman on a Denver-bound flight, neither imagines how their lives are about to change.

 

But change, they will... in ways no one could’ve ever predicted.

 

Their friends and co-workers receive similar texts... about the same man—one Trent McCarthy—a handsome, charming fellow... whom both women have apparently fallen for, separately. 

 

Everything is exciting, each woman gushes, and Trent wants to take her back to see his hometown of Atlanta... until suddenly, the texts stop. And no amount of anxious questions from friends or colleagues elicit any further communications from either woman.

 

They simply... disappear.

 

Somewhere in Atlanta, if the text messages are, indeed, anything to go by.

 

Which leaves two completely different sets of people wondering... exactly who is this Trent guy... and what the hell did he do to the woman (women) they know??

 

 

I love a story full of twists—particularly if I don’t really see those twists coming, AND if said twists are actually believable. And those in The Business Trip? Fall smack-dab under both headers.

 

Aside from a cracking plot, though, there are so many things newcomer Garcia has done that simply must be mentioned.

 

First, she creates some dead-on relatable characters, doing things and living lives I understand. I really get each of these women... and have met more than a few Trent McCarthys, for that matter. (The auxiliary characters are also well-drawn, from Stephanie’s neighbor and her closest co-workers, to Jasmine’s friends and her abusive boyfriend.)

Garcia also gives a nice sense of places—yes, multiple—which is so important in establishing an overall vibe. I haven’t been to Madison (although I could probably sub in numerous other small midwestern cities and be good-to-go), but the other places visited? Spot-on.

Finally, she employs an ingenious storytelling technique which I, personally, haven’t experienced—that of multiple storytellers.

 

Okay, I know you’re raising your hands and saying, “But... but...” with all sorts of examples, but... believe me, this is different. Because Garcia doesn’t just use a couple of voices—she uses a BUNCH. 

 

No, honestly. There are upwards of ten different first-person narratives, over the course of this tale. That’s... well, it’s SOMETHING. And it works... oh, how it works.

 

Whether or not The Business Trip goes where you’re thinking it’s going to is up for grabs. But as for me, I was surprised... again and again and again.

 

And loved every single second of my uncertainty.

 

The Business Trip would be a triumph for any thriller writer. But for one just out-of-the-gate, like Jessie Garcia? It’s like a master course in how to do suspense. 

 

Trust me. Read this one, the second it comes out. It’s a ride.


[Publish date set for 14 Jan 2025] 

 

~GlamKitty


[Thanks to St. Martin's Press for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are, as always, entirely my own.]

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