Butcher Bird [Hardcover]

Dean Ing (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1993

The author of The Ransom of Black Stealth One returns with an international thriller about a fighter plane, known as the Butcher Bird, that is designed to assassinate with a laser beam that targets and boils a human brain in seconds. 40,000 first printing.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The dashing band of mavericks introduced in The Ransom of Black Stealth One must hunt down and destroy an even deadlier aircraft this time: an unmanned, laser-armed vehicle with the ability to target an individual victim. To combat this threat, the U.S. government secretly engages pilot Kyle Corbett, aging, ill and still on the run from the law. He is accompanied by Petra Leigh, quite possibly the world's most beautiful stress analyst, and the two of them are assisted by mechanic-pilot buddy Raoul (Speedy) Medina. Opposing them is the wonderfully villainous scientist, Roland Clement, who loses no time in demonstrating that his deadly airship is a masterfully designed assassination tool. From the first pages, readers will be caught up in a suspenseful, romantic and gloriously improbable story in which the airships are the technical stars while the humans provide derring-do that Indiana Jones would envy. Corbett's confrontations with his own mortality and the extremely implausible climax are minor setbacks. A more serious deterrent to new readers is the assumption that readers will be familiar with the characters and their dilemmas. However, since these are among the liveliest aero-adventures around, readers may want to lay in a supply of the earlier books as well.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This follow-up to Ing's earlier novel, The Ransom of Black Stealth One ( LJ 8/89), features many of the same contrived characters. It also resembles its predecessor in its use of a technologically improbable vehicle in an implausible plot--which, unfortunately, is nearly identical to the earlier novel as well. Both books deal with the theft of top-secret stealth aircraft, which are then set loose in the United States. Recommended only for libraries with a large number of fans of The Ransom of Black Stealth One ; presumably, they might be interested in a sequel as silly as the original.
- Jim Cunningham, Illinois Mathe matics & Science Acad., Aurora
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 348 pages
• Publisher: Forge; 1st. ed edition (November 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312853971
• ISBN-13: 978-0312853976
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,364,842 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing!, June 6, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Butcher Bird (Mass Market Paperback)

The Butcher Bird weaves an intriguing mystery tale that holds the reader's attention until the plot is revealed. The story is not for the "faint at heart" as it reveals the shadow side of human nature. However, for those who want to hunker down with a mind-tingling search to solve a strange murder, the Butcher Bird captures the imagination. A good backpacking book to carry along and absorb your thoughts away from the hum-drum workaday world. [e-mail]

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fast Paced High Technology Thriller, August 29, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Butcher Bird (Mass Market Paperback)

In the Butcher Bird, a group of foreign nationals, led by a brilliant but frustrated Aerospace Design Genius, and a talented Software Engineer develop an incredible weapon. This weapon, designed to loiter in an area, searching for a target, and instantly dispatching the target, without detection. When the CIA finds out about the scheme, they call upon a high tech aerospace thinktank to design a similar weapon, and find it's weakness's. Using beyond state of the art tactics, the team develop a profile to prevent a national disaster

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Decent, but not up to par, June 11, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Butcher Bird (Mass Market Paperback)

Dean Ing is a competent writer, but for some reason fell short with this novel. Butcher Bird is about an embittered aerospace engineer with an inflated ego and his Syrian funded creation, a technological marvel for assassins, using "Black" stealth technology and a miniature nuclear power source. The villain uses his "Butcher Bird" to knock off top aerospace researchers he feels have slighted him in some way in the past. The hero of the book, a nearly-flawless, middle-aged man with a practically teen-aged lover, single handedly tries to rescue the world from this mad scientist. I found Butcher Bird to be an entertaining, but, in the end, disappointing story. It starts with a bang and goes out with an unrealistic, overly contrived fizzle