edited by C.J. Stott ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 17, 2014
An aviation page-turner that delivers a diverse and well-developed cast of characters, nonstop action, and unrelenting...
Set in the late 1980s, a debut novel chronicles the unforeseen consequences of an ex-convict’s attempt to hijack a 747 flight from San Francisco to New York City.
Capt. Don Webber, a veteran aviator who has been married for 26 years, is looking forward to piloting a 400-plus–passenger Boeing 747 to JFK airport. It’s not so much the long flight that excites him as it is his scheduled rendezvous with his most recent lover, a sexually adventurous Pan Am flight attendant. But his plans of infidelity are thwarted by an ex-con named Guillermo Villas Guerrero, who has become entangled in an ill-conceived plot to hijack a plane to Cuba. Guerrero has mixed feelings about the scheme (“One moment, he felt the hijacking was going to be a snap, a piece of cake. The next moment he was terrified with recurring and rampant visions of failure. The result of his dreamed failure was always the same. He would fail. He would be caught. He would go back to prison”). Once in the air, he begins unraveling emotionally and eventually takes a cabin attendant hostage with a graphite handgun that he smuggled aboard, forcing his way into the cockpit. The situation devolves quickly from there. This thriller is comparable to the air disaster movies of the ’70s (Airport, Airport 1975, etc.). Stott adeptly creates three-dimensional and believable (albeit a bit stereotypical) characters whose various struggles and motivations help power the story forward. Director of security operations at San Francisco airport Robert Burns and senior dispatcher Frankfurt Lazlo Fielding come alive on the page, giving readers a glimpse into the pressure-packed and bureaucratic nightmare that working with the Federal Aviation Administration can be. Another of the novel’s strengths is paradoxically a weakness as well. The author is highly knowledgeable about aviation, and that expertise initially brings an undeniable authenticity to the story. But there are numerous sequences in which he goes into too much detail (such as explaining a phugoid oscillation curve), and these collectively detract from the tale’s narrative flow and negatively affect the momentum. But these issues have little impact on the overall reading experience.
An aviation page-turner that delivers a diverse and well-developed cast of characters, nonstop action, and unrelenting tension; buckle up and prepare for a wild ride.Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-692-29053-8
Page Count: 408
Publisher: Black Thunderbird Press
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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