Customer Reviews

Blackout

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

In Hong Kong, FBI Agent Kat Bronsky and Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Robert McCabe wonder. . . where do you go when there is no place to hide from the people chasing after you? McCabe believes he has a partial answer to what caused Sea Air Flight 122 to crash in the Gulf of Mexico, killing over two hundred people. He is convinced that a terrorist act caused the disaster, but has no proof. Kat thinks McCabe has the evidence to prove his assertion. She plans to fly back to Washington with him, but at the last moment is called off the plane.

They agree to meet, but a bizarre incident happens. The pilot of the plane McCabe is flying dies and the co-pilot goes blind. The plane crashes in Viet Nam with only six survivors. Kat rescues them even as the saboteurs give chase. These unknown assailants seem to always be one step ahead of Kat, as if they are being fed insider information from the top. Still, Kat thinks McCabe knows something critical even if he is unaware of its importance. He is the target and she must keep him safe.

John J. Nance is renowned for his pulse pounding thrillers that always take the audience along for one heck of a ride. His latest tale, BLACKOUT, is another triumph for an author with one of the last decade's best résumé. The graphic story line feels so believable that many frequent flyers will take the bus just as many moviegoers avoided beaches after Jaws. The engaging characters gain empathy, as what happens to McCabe and Kat seems important to the reader. Mr. Nance provides his fans with an electrifying tale that shows how talented he is.

Harriet Klausner

I picked this book up at Dallas-Ft. Worth airport just before leaving for Geneva via Brussels this week. I finished the book by the time I got to Geneva. Few books have kept me turning pages like this. Tom Clancy's books (the real ones, not the Op-Center and Net-whatever balony) have gripped me like this as well, but they are much longer.

I guess it helps that John Nance is a pilot, and that I am an aviation nut. He goes into a lot of detail on how to fly a 747 in the first half of the book, and I don't remember spotting a single technical error, which is very unusual.

The plot is quite plausable, and there is enough information withheld (and fed to you bit by bit) to keep you guessing right up to the final chapters as to who are the bad guys and who isn't, unlike certain books which give the reader all the info and you have to read how the characters discover what you already know. So good marks to John Nance for that.

The only reason I give 4 instead of 5 stars is that the book COULD have been a lot more. Just imagine if John Nance had given the manuscript to Tom Clancy for a bit of reworking. The book would have come back with a LOT more character development, and more artfully crafted descriptions of scenes and action. The book may have ended up being twice as long, but the story and characters are easily interesting enough to keep your attention for a good, long round-the-world trip.

Charles

You first must realize that this is a work of fiction and written to please the reader. Mr. Nance has done all this. Could it happen? I don't know. Did it keep me interested all the time? Yes. We have an author who does not use sex to sell, an author who uses violence when needed, but again not to sell the book.

This is a book to enjoy both for the plot and the characters. I wondered throughout the entire book as to how it would end. There were a lot of times I thought I had it figured out and then I was not so sure. There are just enough players to keep you guessing and on edge.

Buy this book. All his books have been good and this is as good or better.

The Book Blackout, by author John Nance, was a very exciting book. Having this be the first book of his I've read, I found this book interesting at all times leaving me wondering, "what happens now. The story evolves around 2 characters running from an terrorist group out to keep them from taking. Kat Bronsky a very well know FBI hostage negotiator is out to save the survivors of a plane crash over Vietnam jungle and also find out what keeps bringing down al these jumbo jets. One of the survivors that she is trying to keep alive is Robert McCabe a polister prize winning writer thinks he knows the answers, but his contact is dead and the only person who can tell him what is going on is lost somewhere in the U.S. This is the only book I've read that I have found interesting enough to keep my attention. I am only 15 years old and don't really like to read all that much. The readers who enjoy fast pace interesting books would really enjoy reading this book. The only thing I really found in this book that I didn't like was the ending of it. I guess John Nance leave the ending of the book for the reader to decide.

As is usual with Nance's aviation thrillers, I kept turning the pages enthusiastically, with each event building on the next. Blackout started quickly, moving along with a lot of suspense. Then, I started to get a little bored with the story. But, suddenly, it became quick again, and I didn't want to put it down. My favorite book is still Pandora's Clock, though. Here is how I would rate Nance's books:

1. Pandora's Clock 2. Medusa's Child 3. The Last Hostage 4. Blackout 5. Scorpion's Strike 6. Phoenix Rising 7. Final Approach

Now I am waiting for his new book Headwind to come out. I am sure that will be another good one.

An airliner flies out of control when a mysterious light penetrates the cockpit leaving no one capable of flying it to safety - except maybe a kid who knows the Boeing 747 controls from a flight simulator. And to make matters worse, there are similarities between this 'flash' incident, and another jumbo jet that got into trouble in the skies near Cuba. Is this a new kind of terrorism? Or some sort of internal sabotage? Or maybe just a coincidence?

Book series heroine FBI Agent Katherine 'Kat' Bronsky is delivering a seminar on just these kinds of problems when she is pressed into service to solve and save the 'rudderless' jumbo jet and its two hundred passengers. With mysterious information provided to her by a newspaper reporter covering her seminar, she realizes evil forces, with possibly a worldwide network that rivals the capabilities and size of the FBI, are at work. These nefarious forces quickly make her and others the hunted, instead of the hunters.

Just when you hope for an adrenalin let up, this best yet JOHN NANCE aviation thriller climbs to a higher level of suspense, terror and fear. Series (swashbuckler?) character Kat Bronsky unconventional style continues to develop with this installment, along with her intelligence, wit and inventiveness. When every situation gets worse (by the minute), she gets better. So strap in, place your tray tables in their full upright position, and enjoy the flight.

Once again John Nance has written a winner. As a reader of all of his previous novels, I was thrilled to pick up his latest. From the minute I began reading this latest Airplane disaster, it was impossible to put it down. The explicit detail that Mr. Nance uses makes you feel as if you are on the plane with Mr. Mcabe and Kate Bronsky. The only negative in finishing this book is now I have to wait for the next one. You can bet I will be first in line when it comes out.

John Nance's newest book is a pulse pounding chase book which only falters (slightly) at the end. Kat Bronsky, the FBI's best known and most attractive hostage negotiator finds herself in Hong Kong to address a symposium on terrorisim when she is drawn into a a life and death struggle with unknown forces who are causing airliners to crash. Her chance meeting with Robert McCabe, a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist from the Washington Post is the beginning of some deadly events beginning with the crash of a 747 that Kat is supposed to be on and the Robert is on. The plane is brought down by a mystery weapon which blinds the pilots. Six survive the crash and the rest of the book is given over to their trying to escape the unknown forces that are trying to kill them because of what they have seen and because of what they believe McCabe has stored in his computer about them. The book sails along from encounter and escape in Viet Nam all the way to Idaho and in so doing it is a real page turner. My only problem is that I thought the ending was a little too pat after such a complicated build up and it also seemed reminiscent of another book I have read. It's still well worth your time and money. When the story is in the air, Nance is at his best.

Not having read any of Nance's works, I decided to take a chance and picked up Blackout from the bargain book table. I'm glad I did. Nance takes the reader on a page-turning adventure than starts with the unexplained crash of a U.S. passenger jet in the Caribbean. The story quickly shifts to a meeting in Hong Kong where an FBI agent Kat Bronsky (who specializes in airline terrorism) meets up with Washington Post reporter Robert McCabe (who claims to know something about the downing of the plane). Nance then chronicles the efforts of this pair to uncover the truth regarding the downing of the first jet (and those that come later). Blackout is clearly a page turner that grabs the reader early and keeps him guessing. Prepare for some level of sleep deprivation as you stay up too late in order to read "just one more chapter."

The first half of BLACKOUT by author John Nance, a commercial pilot himself, is an edge-of-your-seat ride maybe best left at home on your next plane trip. It makes severe air turbulence the event of choice for the truly discriminating road warrior. Meridian #5, a 747 on a flight from Hong Kong to the States, has its pilot killed and the co-pilot completely blinded by a mysterious flash of light shortly after take-off. As theres no other qualified pilot aboard, uh-oh, whos going to land the aircraft? How about that smart-alecky 14 year old kid in coach? You think? And what is the relationship of this incident to the other airliner that nosedived into the Caribbean just two months earlier?

Enter FBI agent Katherine Bronsky. Kat can fly planes, both jets and prop jobs. (Too bad shes not on Meridian 5.) She can also pilot helicopters and drive a Sno-Cat. Best of all, she can disguise herself to look like a blond and expensive workin girl. (Now, thats my kind of woman!) In this potboilers second half, she mothers a group of Meridian 5s passengers as theyre pursued from the jungles of Vietnam to the snowfields of Idaho by murderous villains. (How did the plane land, you ask? Well, read the book.)

BLACKOUT is perfect escapist entertainment for a day at the beach or the ski lodge. The first half is infinitely better than the second because of the in-flight action. The latter suffers from being a more-or-less ordinary and extended chase sequence built around several mighty close shaves. There is indeed an element of mystery as the reader wonders which of the Good Guys back at FBI HQ is actually one of the Bad Guys trying to eliminate Kat and her charges before they spill the beans on the nefarious conspiracy that got Meridian 5 into Deep Bandini, and is about to send commercial air travel into the toilet. Unfortunately, the conclusion seems just too pat, and several threads are left hanging. Its like the author had to finish by a too soon publishing deadline. However, Ill still award 3.5 stars, rounded out to 4.