Customer Reviews

Flying To Pieces

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Flying to Pieces was an excellent book, with thoroughly deep characters and an engrossing plot. Ing weaves a masterful book together with a few special surprises in the end. Loved the name of the group, B.O.F. (Boring Old Farts)

was what I thought when I found this copy in a box of donated paperbacks on my first Iraq tour. I love old WWII airplanes, goofy adventures, and grew up around my grandfather and all his WWII buddies listening to wild tales. I'd drop papers for 30 days' leave and cast my lot in with a caper like this in a heartbeat if the old guys asked. Tons of fun, but with just enough cliches to keep it from getting that fifth star.

Ing's recent books, Spooker and Butcher Bird have been thrillers, with tension and suspence as characters narrowly escape death, capture, doom. Ing's characters share center stage with great machines. Flying to Pieces is something new: funny. The plot includes interesting machines in the form of preserved warplanes, but the story is about a group of old farts (and one grandson) off on a treasure hunt. I am reminded of Donald Westlake's comic caper novels, only here the characters might possibly be legal, trying to follow a treasure map to a hidden cache of antique planes on a Pacific island. There are lots of sidetrips and background on characters, so the book is leisurely if one is expecting a fast paced thriller, but a full sized and thoroughly enjoyable read if one wants a light hearted treasure hunt by a bunch of old farts.

Flying to Pieces is predictable and vaguely amusing.

A dying ex-WWII pilot reveals the location of a cache of perfectly preserved Japanese planes to his geriatric pals. With nothing better to do, they organize an expedition to recover the planes from a tropic paradise ruled by a brutish dictator and make themselves rich. In the process, they prove that old age and cunning can prevail over youth and enthusiasm.

The best part of this story was the hardware. Ing writes about aviation. The flying scenes were the best. The firearms, heavy equipment, were not too shabby either. The informational aspects of the story make this is "guys" novel.

There was nothing new in the plot of this novel. I knew how this story was going to end a quarter of the way into it. All the side-plots and character development could not disguise the predictable ending. The author should have spent as much time camouflaging his clichés as he did his mint-condition, Japanese Zeros.

"Flying to Pieces" should have been titled "The Over-the-Hill Gang Flies Airplanes". I'm not sure Ing wrote this book with his tongue firmly buried in his cheek. Read it if you are a Soldier of Fortune equipment-junkie and enjoy plots borrowed from Rocky and Bullwinkle.

Dean Ing writes the same basic story over and over. Which is not to say he is a one trick pony. Each different version is both remarkable for its quality and its attention to detail.

The essential story is someone is forced out of a comfortable place and forced to flee. Sometimes there is a valuable McGuffin involved. This time the threat is a an avaricious son in law who wants to have a wealthy aircraft dealer declared alzheimer's incompetent so he can steal his business and the investment assets. The McGuffin is a collection of Japanese aircraft stored on a remote island in the Japanse colonial possessions in the South Pacific: A Betty bomber, and a collection of Zeros. The goal is to take away the Japanese aircraft from the island without the natives getting wind of the plot.

The story is very well told. As long as you don't think too closely over some of the details it is very enjoyable. If you look too closely at some of the plot points you loose some of the joy. As long as you read it strait through and don't stop to argue it is great.

Being the Pacific War buff that I am, I was terribly excited by Mr. Ing's latest offering. However, I found the book slow starting and not exactly sure where it wanted to go. The homosexual undertones were annoying, the plot a bit unbelievable and the romantic interests (such as they were) more than a bit far fetched. The WWII vets I know would have done things much differently throughout..

Too many blabbings. After 50 pages still going nowhere. If Mr. Ing tried to portray some of the "old farts" as he continuously reminded us, he himself should not become one of them by blabbing so much digressive and irrelevant contents. I've read Mr. Ing's other books, but this one seems to come of age too much