Skyhook

Rating:
Summary: Another Enticing Read
Review: Another enticing reader by aviation journeyman, John J. Nance, is scripted against the format of that ever-present military/industrial complex we are in the grip of wherein an improbable plane accident occurs. The establishment firmly resists an investigative intrusion into the unthinkable but the author uses deft characterization to sort myriad personal complexities into not only the probable but the possible.
The occasional use of a quirky feline personage, Schroedinger, who gets impatient with loss of priorities by the human clan, will foster recall of similar relationships by readers who are owned by a cat lends a now-and-then break from the mind-numbing attention this book of suspenseful travail demands. Another Keeper!

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Held my interest from cover to cover.

Rating:
Summary: The Hook Gets Set Slowly
Review: John Nance has given us several lawyer/aviation stories, beginning with the excellent Pandora's Clock about disease spreading quickly worldwide through airline travel (SARS anyone?). Many of his books have been suspenseful and gripping. Some have not been as good as others. Skyhook, unfortunately, tends more to the latter than the former. The first half is a very slow read, and I came close several times to putting it down. I persevered, however, and was satisfied at the end.
This book is more lawyer than aviation, and the protagonist is neither. April Jensen is a cruise line executive based in Vancouver. Her best friend and almost-sister is a young, rising lawyer with a prestigious Seattle firm. Her father is an airline captain who owns a restored, made into a recreational vehicle, WWII flying boat. When her parents disappear while flying in Alaskan waters, April practically has to force authorities to make a search. When they find her parents afloat in a life raft nearly dead from exposure, her pressure appears to have been justified. Then a belligerent FAA inspector accuses her father of all sorts of violations, including drinking, and gets his license revoked. This is serious, because flying is not only his occupation, it is his life. The lawyer friend becomes involved to try to save his career.
Meanwhile, there is a secret Air Force research project going on, to create the computer software and links to enable a ground-based pilot to take control of a plane in flight, ostensibly so that a plane with incapacitated pilots can be landed safely. The civilian applications post 911 are obvious, but not stated until later. The project is in trouble, and the chief software developer is having real concerns about sabotage. These two plots just avoid a midair collision, and merge into a common trajectory, with a smooth three-point landing. You may have to buckle your seat belt to get to the ending, but on the whole, this is a good read.

Rating:
Summary: Just "OK," I am afraid
Review: This was very slow to start for me, and as the book progressed from the cockpit, to the Pentagon, to the ocean, to the courtroom, to the White House I kept thinking "So what?"

Its a little implausable that a pilot who "just happens" to be flying in a top secret military test zone gets wrapped up in the plot they way he does, and that it gets elevated to the level it does - just for the sake of reinstating his pilot's license?

Pretty far fetched in terms of the story, but I enjoyed the technical side of the plot - as flawed as it was.

A decent read, but I never really did buy in...