Her Last Flight

In order to conduct research for a planned biography of forgotten aviation pioneer Sam Mallory, who enlisted in the loyalist forces during the Spanish Civil War and never came back, photographer and war writer Janey Everett travels to a rural surfing town on the Hawaiian island of Kauai in 1947. Fixated on Sam's destiny, Janey has located Irene Lindquist, the proprietor of a nearby island-hopping airline, whom she speculates may be the fabled Irene Foster, Mallory's former pupil and flying companion. Foster's disappearance in 1937 during a round-the-world flight is still one of the biggest mysteries in the world.

The flinty Mrs. Lindquist initially denies any relationship to Foster. Then, piece by piece, the details of Foster's extraordinary life come to light, from the start of her flying career in Southern California to her complex and passionate relationship with Sam Mallory to the breakdown of her marriage to her aggressive career manager, the publishing scion George Morrow. Janey tells her that the wreck of Mallory's airplane has recently been discovered in a Spanish desert.

As Irene culminates her story with a fiery finale, Janey's history begins to accumulate its own force. The two women's duel takes an unexpected and thrilling turn. Who is Mallory really supposed to belong to? Is it ever possible for us to accept the loss of the people we love and the lives we could have had?