Crashers [Hardcover]

Dana Haynes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 22, 2010

Whenever a plane goes down in the U.S., a "Go Team" made up of experts is assembled by the NTSB to investigate. Those people - each of them a leading expert in a specific area  - are known as informally as "Crashers."

When a passenger plane, a Vermeer One Eleven, slams into the ground outside Portland, Oregon, a team is quickly assembled to investigate the cause.  Under the leadership of the IIC (Investigator in Charge), Leonard "Tommy" Tomzak, a pathologist who recently quit the NTSB who also happened to be in the area when the Vermeer One Eleven went down, the team gets to work as fast as possible. Assembled by Susan Tanaka, the inter-governmental liason from the NTSB on this crash, the team includes: Kathryn "Kiki" Duvall (voice recorder specialist), known as a"sonar witch" who can hear things that others can't and can pinpoint an accent from anywhere in the world; John Roby (Mad Bomber), former cop and bomb expert, who can detect the use of an incendiary device simply by smelling the air; Walter Mulroney (Structures), looks more like a cowboy than an engineer but can rebuild just about any plane from the bolts up; along with Peter Kim (Power Plant) and Isaiah Grey (Operations).  Usually the team has months to determine the cause of a crash. But this time it's different. This time, the plane was brought down deliberately, without leaving a trace, and this was only a trial run.

In LA, Daria Gibron - a former Shin Bet agent, now under the protection of the FBI- spots a group of suspicious-looking men. Missing her former life of action, she attaches herself to them only to learn that, somehow, they were responsbie for the plane crash and are preparing for another action. While her FBI handler tries to find her and save her, Daria risks her life to try to get close enough to learn what's going on and thwart the coming terrorist action. But time is running out and her cover story is running thin.

A fresh and utterly compelling thriller, an original mix of action, investigation and a brilliant cast of characters that grabs the reader in the way few novels can and fewer do.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Haynes's compelling first thriller takes familiar elements—a mysterious airplane crash, a bent FBI agent, a deadly female spy—and mixes them with the world of National Transportation Safety Board aviation disaster investigations. When pathologist Leonard Tommy Tomzak, who's attending a Portland, Ore., medical conference, sees a TV report of a nearby jetliner crash, he rushes to the site via helicopter. There Tommy takes charge of the investigation, though he quit the NTSB a few months earlier in a huff. As other NTSB personnel (known as crashers) make their way to the crash scene from around the country, Tommy and his local crew secure the site. The forensic details fascinate but aren't for the weak of stomach. Haynes (Sacrifice Play and two other mysteries as Conrad Haynes) nicely integrates several subplots involving terrorism. The slam-bang crash landing of a conclusion will leave readers anxiously awaiting the promised sequel. 100,000 first printing. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Action-oriented readers will embrace this new thriller for its lively and fast-moving story, even as they may find the many familiar elements a little tiresome. The premise is simple: a crack team of National Transportation Safety Board experts investigate airplane crashes. Normally they take months to sift through wreckage and evidence, but this time they have mere days: if they can’t figure out what and who brought down CascadeAir Flight 818, more planes will fall from the sky. The lead characters, the Crashers, are cut from familiar molds: the hotshot engineer, the voice-recorder specialist, the veteran pathologist, and so on. They seem clearly designed as anchors for a series, but they need more fleshing out to make the transition from types to fully developed characters. The plot itself relies on familar assembly-cast TV crime dramas, but it is well paced and generates plenty of tension. A solid debut that, with some fine-tuning, could become an engaging series. --David Pitt

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Minotaur Books; 1 edition (June 22, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312599889
• ISBN-13: 978-0312599881
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (55 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #340,184 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Check Your Disbelief at the Cabin Door..., May 17, 2010

By 

Terry Sunday (El Paso, Texas United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Crashers (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

"Crashers" is an okay, but not great, thriller. A big four-engined Vermeer 111 passenger jet crashes minutes after taking off from Portland International Airport. Members of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) quickly converge at the scene to find out what went wrong. The men and women of this "Go-Team" have the obligatory ethnic and racial diversity, and each of them is an expert in some field related to the crash investigation. As the Go-Team's work in the hulk of the downed airliner proceeds, it starts to seem that the crash may have been caused by an unknown terrorist who can bring down another airplane at any time--and the clock is ticking.

So far, so good. It's an intriguing premise. In these days of shoe bombers, underwear bombers and full-body security scans at airports, the concept of a terrorist being able to cause an airplane to crash at will, and in a way that leaves no incriminating evidence, is a unique twist. But, unfortunately, "Crashers" doesn't live up to the full potential of such a clever idea. I won't spoil it by revealing the details, but I will say that any alert reader should be able to figure out what brought down the airliner by page 10. After that, there's no mystery to unravel, and it's pretty much standard thriller fare: brutal, sadistic villains; all-American good guys; a beautiful and exotic female agent; clandestine goings-on; deadly shootouts, etc. The characters are pretty well-defined, the dialog is mainly convincing, the sense of place (mostly in northern Oregon) is adequate, and the pace is fast, especially near the end. If these were the only factors to consider, I'd give "Crashers" four stars and recommend it as a quick, throwaway "beach read."

But I have to knock off a star for several reasons. The descriptions of the crash investigation are very superficial, and the actions of some Go-Team members are too far removed from reality. I know, it's a novel, and I can suspend my disbelief in favor of a good story, but not that much. The technology of the system that causes the crash--I won't reveal it--is totally unbelievable and most likely physically impossible. Even though one of the investigators often says he doesn't believe in coincidences, far too much of the plot depends on coincidences. And finally, author Dana Haynes doesn't seem to know much about aircraft. As a retired aerospace engineer and licensed pilot, I cringed almost every time he tried to describe aircraft-related technology. Again, I know it's fiction, but a quick read by a competent techie could have corrected some of his more bizarre misconceptions and given his book so much more verisimilitude.

So I recommend "Crashers" as a three-star, quick, throwaway beach read. It's not bad, but it falls far short of my five-star standards--standards formed by decades-old genre novels such as Frederick Forsyth's "The Odessa File," Larry Collins and Dominick LaPierre's "The Fifth Horseman" and Brian Lecomber's "Dead Weight," which set the bar very, very high.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Investigating the gruesome remains of an aircraft crash to find the cause..., May 16, 2010

By 

Thomas Duff "Duffbert" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Crashers (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

Via the Amazon Vine review program, I selected a copy of the book Crashers by Dana Haynes for review. This thriller has an element that I haven't encountered in my reading before... the investigation of an aircraft accident by the National Transportation Safety Board, or NTSB for short. And the fact that the author sets the story in Portland, Oregon (the city I live in) didn't hurt in my decision-making process, either. What I ended up with in Crashers was a fun thriller that kept me turning pages to see how the technical aspect of the crime was carried out (as well as the why was it done in the first place).

The story revolves around a plane crash that seems to have no root cause. The cockpit recorder shows that everything was working fine up to the point where the copilot notices a signal for a catastrophic system failure and instantly the plane starts to shake itself to pieces. A team from the NTSB arrives on the scene, led by Leonard Tomzak, a disgraced team member who failed to find a cause for the prior crash they investigated, leading to second-guessing by other members of the team. Part of the team wants to write the crash off to pilot error, but Tomzak isn't quite ready to buy that explanation, as the behavior of the pilots doesn't fit for him. Focus starts to turn to the new generation of flight recorder on the plane, and the technical lead from the company is more than happy to show off the capabilities of the device. However, it could be that the device does more than just record, and that the tech lead is part of a larger terrorist plot that could have international ramifications.

There was quite a bit to like about Crashers. The NTSB characters were fleshed out, and they were realistically flawed and believable. The terrorism thread was also interesting and I enjoyed watching the two storylines converge. A couple parts were pretty far-fetched (such as the freeway scene), but not enough that it took away from the overall entertainment value of the novel. Given that this is Haynes' first novel, he's done a nice job, and I hope he decides to evolve this into a series based around crash investigators.

Disclosure:
Obtained From: Amazon Vine Review Program
Payment: Free

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Clueless, October 24, 2010

By 

Dave English (Arizona, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Crashers (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

For me, part of the enjoyment of reading novels is being taken to another place and time. Philippa Gregory takes us to Tudor England, John Grisham takes us into Southern American courtrooms. Dana Haynes promises to take us into the world of the NTSB investigating major airplane crashes. Unfortunately he completely fails.

We're not looking for complete authenticity, after all novels take us to Mars or completely made-up worlds, but it should seem real enough to allow the suspension of belief so the story can unfold. In the first few pages of this book it is instantly clear the author knows near nothing about aviation or airlines.

Introducing the captain: "she was the pilot and the senior officer." No, all the pilots are pilots, and the ranks are captain, first officer, second officer. Then the captain looks at the weather, "One octa, she said to herself." Only if she was English, US pilots don't use octas. The copilot's schedule includes a "four-day layover in Los Angeles, before starting the rotation all over." No, that's called days off! A layover is rest at a hotel while working a trip. Every time the book involves aviation it makes beginner errors. "Uh, PDX flight control, this is CascadeAir Eight One Eight." No, in the US there is clearance, metering, ground, tower, departure, center and approach - no flight control. While still talking to the tower, the "air masks deployed." No, they are oxygen masks and they won't deploy at such a low altitude you're still talking to the tower. "Runway One Zero Romeo is available." No, as anyone who has listened for ten minutes on the web to tower frequencies, runways are left, center or right. This is all on just the first few pages! "Both Meghan and Russ looked up as the "stick shaker" sounded: they were perilously close to stalling an engine." No, no, no.

Since the basic everyday `details' are so wrong, how can I expect to be transported into the look and feel of the cockpit? If simple facts of ordinary flying are so off, how can I expect the NTSB accident team to be anything other than cartoonish? If you want a good aviation mystery, read something by John Nance. Run away from this twaddle.