CONQUERORS OF THE SKY

Name: CONQUERORS OF THE SKY
Author: Thomas Fleming
ISBN: 0-765-30322-1

by Thomas Fleming ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 2003

A clever and appealing tale that, in the best Fleming style, recounts broad swathes of history through the lives of two...

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Another epic plotboiler from Fleming (When This Cruel War is Over, 2001, etc.), this one about two unlikely friends who team up to form the world’s largest aircraft corporation.

In its earliest days, aeronautics was a hobby rather than a business, and most aircraft were built by mechanics who tinkered rather than designed. But when Craig Buchanan took his kid brother Frank to an air show in Dominguez Hills, California, in 1912, the younger boy was hooked for life. Barely out of his teens, he learned how to fly and eventually became an ace pilot during WWI. Later on, he toured the US with a barnstorming troupe that included a wiry young flier named Charles Lindbergh. On one of his trips over southern California, Frank had the good fortune to crash in an orange grove owned by Amanda Van Ness, the estranged wife of New York socialite and financier Adrian Van Ness. Talk about landing on your feet: Not only did Frank and Amanda fall in love, but Adrian became one of his best friends and backed him in the formation of Buchanan Aircraft, which became (thanks to Adrian’s money) the first company to produce commercial airplanes on a large scale. The Depression was a hard time to get a new business off the ground, but the combination of Frank’s genius for design and Adrian’s knowledge of the international markets made the company a success beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. Fleming’s 22nd novel covers a lot of ground, running from the turn of the century to the 1980s, mixing real history (WWI and WWII, the Depression, the Cold War) and biography (politicians from Churchill to Reagan make appearances) into the stew of Frank and Adrian’s ambitions and envies.

A clever and appealing tale that, in the best Fleming style, recounts broad swathes of history through the lives of two well-drawn but fictitious characters. (As the publisher reminds, Fleming’s account “fittingly . . . commemorate[s] the 100th anniversary of the conquest of the sky.”)

Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-765-30322-1

Page Count: 544

Publisher: Forge

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2002

Categories:

HISTORICAL FICTION | GENERAL FICTION

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.

Pub Date: July 11, 1960

ISBN: 0060935464

Page Count: 323

Publisher: Lippincott

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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DISTANT SHORES

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2002

Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...

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Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.

After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?

Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).