Hollow Bones

From the #1 <New York Times< bestselling author of <By Any Other Name< comes a riveting novel about the risks we take to protect the ones we love in a world where crisis is always just around the corner.

On September 11, 2001, when Molly Fitzgerald was only two months old, her mother went to an appointment at the World Trade Center and never came home. Her father and the stepmother who raised her couldn&rsquo;t have loved her more, but she still grew up with a healthy dread of disasters.

Now an adult, she runs the Rhode Island Department for Emergency Preparedness, mapping out ways to save lives during storms, epidemics, and airplane crashes. She and her husband, Jesse&mdash;a police polygraph expert with his own history of crisis&mdash;have found a love that is a solace in a dangerous world. But then the unexpected upends their new marriage, leading them both to question everything they thought they knew.

Moving between past and present, <Hollow Bones< is an epic story of the lies we tell ourselves as we write the narratives of our lives, the plans we design to protect ourselves at the worst moments, and the ties that bind mothers and daughters.

Autorentext

Jodi Picoult is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of thirty novels, including By Any Other Name, Mad Honey (co-authored with Jennifer Finney Boylan), Wish You Were Here, The Book of Two Ways, A Spark of Light, Small Great Things, Leaving Time, and My Sister’s Keeper, and, with daughter Samantha van Leer, two young adult novels, Between the Lines and Off the Page. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband.

Klappentext

#1 NEW YORK TIMES AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER • From the acclaimed author of By Any Other Name comes a riveting novel about the risks we take to protect the ones we love in a world where crisis is always just around the corner.

On September 11, 2001, when Molly Fitzgerald was only two months old, her mother went to an appointment at the World Trade Center and never came home. Her father and the stepmother who raised her couldn’t have loved her more, but she still grew up with a healthy dread of disasters.

Now an adult, she runs the Rhode Island Department for Emergency Preparedness, mapping out ways to save lives during storms, epidemics, and airplane crashes. She and her husband, Jesse—a police polygraph expert with his own history of crisis—have found a love that is a solace in a dangerous world. But then the unexpected upends their new marriage, leading them both to question everything they thought they knew.

Moving between past and present, Hollow Bones is an epic story of the lies we tell ourselves as we write the narratives of our lives, the plans we design to protect ourselves at the worst moments, and the ties that bind mothers and daughters.

Zusammenfassung
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of By Any Other Name comes a gripping new novel.

Leseprobe
1

September 2026

An unexpected wind picks up from the north and the wall of fire becomes a living thing, a dragon roaring toward the first responders who try to tame it. I’m frozen in place, watching this hellscape. These thirty-­mile-­per-­hour gusts have seemingly arrived out of, well, thin air.

The flames lick to the sky and then swoop back against the crashed Southwest jet, making it harder to see the passengers still trapped inside. Smoke rolls across the tarmac and heat beats against my face. My phone buzzes incessantly: Alert 3 at TF Green; plane has crashed on runway, on fire, evacuating passengers; plus calls to nearby police and EMS and fire departments for mutual aid. There’s a scream of sirens as two ladder engines from the Warwick Fire Department join forces with the struggling firemen from the Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting Team, spraying the chemical foam used to extinguish jet fuel.

A dozen EMTs stand at a safe distance like runners at a gate, raring for the go-­ahead to treat the passengers, but there’s no way to get them out of the plane until the fire’s been subdued. Which would have happened by now if the wind hadn’t changed direction. This is quickly becoming an even greater disaster.

As the Chief of the Center for Emergency Preparedness and Response at the Rhode Island Department of Health, I was among the first to be notified about the crash. By the time I ran out the door to get to the Emergency Operations Center at the airport, I was already texting my team. My deputy chief, Toby, had put out the initial notification to all Rhode Island hospitals: A plane has crashed at TF Green. Estimated 168 souls on board. EMS is assessing. Please provide your bed availability. The more time they had to determine their capacity, call in their trauma teams, clear beds in the emergency department, or prep the burn cart, the better.

A whip of wind blows some of my hair out of my braid. By the time I brush it from my eyes, the yellow tongue of the evacuation slide has deployed.

Shit.

While we need to get the passengers safely cleared, having them slide through an active blaze is a mistake. But the EMTs surge forward, and passengers begin deplaning. The airport fire chief grimaces, then directs his team to pivot so they can create a physical barrier between the slide and the flames.

Passengers reach the tarmac, sobbing. A flight attendant shepherds a woman with a piece of metal protruding from her upper arm. One middle-­aged man sees the fire and panics, racing in the opposite direction. Another stumbles toward the firefighters, hands clasped over his eyes, shrieking in pain.

A pumper truck arrives, along with the first ambulances. The triage coordinator—­an EMT at the bottom of the evacuation slide—­evaluates each passenger. Those who can walk get directed to the Temporary Reception Center, a tent where a Southwest rep will check them in and make them as comfortable as possible until law enforcement can interview them. Passengers who can’t move lie on the ground, moaning, or—­worse—­in silence. Paramedics pinball between victims, tagging them with triage tape—­red, yellow, and green.

Although I’ve been doing this job for six years, every disaster feels like the first time. The minutes pass differently. It seems to take aeons until the fire is subdued, foam coating the plane and the tarmac below. By then, anyone able to get off the plane by themself has been evacuated, and firefighters have deployed ladders to rescue those who remain. Injured passengers litter the tarmac like a macabre quilt. An ambulance zooms into view, and two paramedics leap out with a backboard. They rush to a teenage girl, red-­tagged and unmoving, her head haloed by a puddle of blood.

I find myself staring at the spill of red; the horror it evokes. In situations like this, it’s hard to remember what is real and what isn’t.

The Teams app on my phone pings with a member of my department who has been monitoring social media. There was a very pregnant woman on board. Anyone have eyes on her?

A flurry of responses scroll in—­nos from the Temporary Reception Center and the transport officer. Has someone already found her? Is she still on the plane? My gaze roams over the wounded, falling on a woman with her back to me, a yellow tag on her shirt and burns on her arms. When she rolls to the side, I see a swollen belly. She lets out an unearthly groan.

Before I can even text that I’ve found her, an EMT rushes over. He replaces her yellow strip of tape with a red one. “I need transport now,” he shouts.

My phone rings—­the call I have been waiting for. “The manifest is in,” says Sue, a Southwest Airlines rep, r…