Uncontrolled Flight by Frances Peck

Review by Ian Colford

It’s wildfire season in British Columbia. How could Rafe Mackie, a veteran firefighting pilot with West Air, lose control of his plane while making a routine drop of fire retardant, and crash into the forest? That is the question everyone’s asking in Frances Peck’s ambitious and suspenseful novel Uncontrolled Flight, and it’s a question that reverberates far beyond the circle of family, friends and colleagues who suffer in the immediate aftermath of his death.

Peck has constructed a story with many moving parts around a few central characters. Will is Rafe’s firefighting partner, a younger pilot whom Rafe had mentored. Over the ten years of their partnership the two had become close friends and learned to read between the lines of each other’s moods. Sharon is Rafe’s wife, a vibrant and attractive woman in her mid-forties who, suffering the fallout of her husband’s death in the form of an identity crisis, struggles to find a path forward. And then there’s Nathalie, an expert crash-scene investigator but also a supremely self-serving young woman whose private and professional lives are cesspits of impulsive behaviour, bad choices and poor judgment.

We see the action through their eyes, and Peck supplies each with a detailed backstory, giving the novel great depth and resonance.

The story’s main narrative trajectory is the investigation into the crash, which also entails a deep dive into Rafe Mackie’s life. Mackie grew up with older brother Sheldon in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. But beyond this basic fact, Sharon knows little about Rafe’s life there and can’t help but wonder why he rarely spoke of it and always managed to find an excuse not to return, not even for his parents’ funerals. Sharon is also tormented by regret because she and Rafe never managed to conceive a child, and at the time of the accident they were living apart, their marriage having hit a rocky patch.

For Will, Rafe’s death is an almost lethal blow. On the day of the crash, Will was in a second plane flying over the same patch of forest. His job was to guide Rafe to the spot where the retardant drop would have the maximum impact on a growing wildfire. But after witnessing the accident first-hand, Will’s severe case of shock leaves him unable to think straight. He can’t believe that Rafe would allow himself to become distracted and refuses to accept that pilot error was a factor. While on forced leave from his job, his life very nearly goes off the rails.

Nathalie’s involvement encompasses her professional role as a crash investigator and her troubled personal life. Though she has not been assigned to the team looking into Rafe’s accident—and, in fact, has been explicitly warned away from the investigation—this does not stop her from poking her nose where it doesn’t belong. Nathalie carries some baggage. A previous investigation went badly when, prematurely and without authorization, she carelessly leaked information to the press, causing embarrassment for the Transportation Safety Board. Her supervisor, Tucker, regards her as a loose cannon and has her on a short leash. But Nathalie hasn’t learned from her previous mistakes. As she demonstrates time and time again, she simply doesn’t care.

In Uncontrolled Flight, Frances Peck’s control over very complex material is nearly flawless. This is a long book. Unavoidably, given the novel’s setting and the circumstances driving the action, the story includes a fair amount of technical jargon. But on numerous occasions Peck weaves esoteric information seamlessly into the narrative and, by providing context, makes it comprehensible to those of us with no background in fighting wildfires from the sky.

In the end, Uncontrolled Flight succeeds as a gripping, emotionally charged, and deeply affecting story of lives intersecting under tragic circumstances. In this, her second novel, Frances Peck explores two sides of love and loyalty, how they provide strength to keep us going during difficult times but also shield us from the jagged edges of reality’s hard truths.

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About the Author

Frances Peck worked for three decades as an editor, ghostwriter, and educator, before returning to her first love, writing fiction. Her debut novel, The Broken Places, hailed by the Vancouver Sun as an "enthralling lifeboat scenario," earned glowing reviews and a wide readership. She lives in North Vancouver, British Columbia. Find out more at francespeck.com

About the Reviewer

Ian Colford was born, raised and educated in Halifax. His reviews and stories have appeared in many print and online publications. He is the author of two collections of short fiction and two novels and is the recipient of the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award for Evidence.

Book Details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ NeWest Press (Sept. 1 2023)

• Language ‏ : ‎ English

• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 400 pages

• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1774390752

• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1774390757