The Last 39 Seconds: A Novel

Captain Duncan Abernathy crashed a plane on takeoff, killing forty-six people. The official cause? Pilot error. He used the wrong runway.

Indy Abernathy doesn't believe it. Her husband flew that route every week. He knew that airport by heart. He wasn't reckless. He wasn't careless. He wasn't the man they're saying he was.

But Duncan isn't here to explain.

Except... he is. From somewhere beyond reach, Duncan is still watching—desperate to understand how everything went wrong. Because he knows one thing for certain: It doesn't make sense.

As grief turns to blame and lawsuits mount, Indy vows to clear his name. But the deeper she digs, the more the story fractures—and the man she loved slips out of focus. Even Duncan begins to question his own story. Did a simple mistake cause the crash, or was it something much bigger? What really happened on that runway?