Missing in Flight

I’ll admit, I rolled my eyes at first—*another* missing child thriller? But *Missing in Flight* hooked me within 20 minutes, and not because of its premise, but because of how *uncomfortable* it makes you. Cole’s writing thrives on the mundane horrors of air travel: the way a crying baby becomes white noise to strangers, how a mother’s instincts are gaslit by authority figures who’d rather sedate her than search the cargo hold. The pacing is relentless, but not in a car-chase way—it’s the slow, creeping dread of a woman realizing she’s the only one who cares that her child is gone. Renata Friedman’s performance is stellar, though I’ll dock half a star for her occasional over-emphasis on secondary characters’ dialogue (the husband’s lines sometimes veer into soap-opera territory). The production design, however, is flawless. Subtle audio cues—a distant PA announcement, the *thunk* of a luggage compartment—ground the story in reality, making the absurd premise feel terrifyingly plausible. My biggest critique? The third-act twist relies a bit too heavily on a character’s sudden competence after hours of bumbling, which undercuts the earlier tension. Still, this is a thriller that *uses* its audio format, not just one that’s read aloud. If you’ve ever side-eyed a parent struggling on a plane, this’ll haunt you.