Customer Reviews

Skyhook

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

 

 

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.

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...

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!

During the top-secret testing of a new remote flight control box, something goes horribly wrong, and a Gulfstream nearly crashes. At the same time and, obviously in the same airspace, 747 captain Arlie Rosen flies his Albatross into trouble. Arlie, using visual flight control, flies into a cloud bank where he throws a propeller blade and crashes. He and his wife Rachel are rescued, but Arlie gets his pilot's license revoked by an overzealous FAA inspector. This sends his daughter April and family friend Gracie on a campaign to clear Arlie's name. They are met with the usual stonewall of bureaucracy, with a behind-the-scenes cover-up at work, as well.

Even though we were aboard the Gulfstream when we know it took Arlie Rosen's Albatross out of the sky, with the added bonus of sitting in with the head software engineer while he worried over the failing program that caused the crash, the book goes round and round, after round, between the government brass, the Rosen clan, and the software engineer as they slowly and laboriously figure out what was obvious to us by the end of Chapter One.

When the resolution finally drags itself to the party, everything gets tidily tied up, all the nice guys win and get promoted, and there are smiles all around.

With some fun, likeable characters, snappy dialogue, and a believable story line, this could have been a decent book. As it was, I couldn't make myself warm to anybody. The Rosens lived a cushy existence and April had obviously never had a bad day in her charmed life. At 25, she's a high-paid vice president at a cruise line and can just walk away from her job without a thought. Nobody at work minds, though, because she's such an asset to the company. She lives in a high-rise condo. Gracie, her surrogate sister, is close to the family, though everyone is always quick to point out, not actually a part of it. Gracie has secured a position at Jantzen and Pruzan, a high-buck law firm that values her so much, they hand her the moon when she drops what must surely be a crushing workload to work on her personal issues, using her employer as a front, instead. She also has the amazing ability to never need to speak to a judge during business hours and instead chooses to bother them at home, where they let her in, hear her out, lecture her on impropriety, and then give her her way. She lives on a yacht and drives a Corvette.

Dialogue is stilted and more often than not used as a forum for the author to complain about his dislike of slang. This only serves to put these self-righteous characters one plane further away from anywhere I want to be. Added to that is the utterly ludicrous plot that goes nowhere, circling the obvious around and around. We got it already. Why can't any of these Pleasantville characters figure it out? This had to be the sloppiest government cover-up in history, which all could have been avoided if someone high up had told the FAA to back down and give Arlie his license back. But then there would have been no story.

There wasn't one anyway. This book was just plain unrealistic from start to finish, starred unlikeable characters reminiscent of a preachy 1950's TV show, and had horrible dialogue. Save yourself-buy something else.

A top-secret computer program is on the verge of going live--but could wreak havoc on the nation's aviation routines--in this timely new thriller.

I think Skyhook is one of Nance's best works yet. His knowledge in the airline field, as well as computers and the law, make this a well rounded thriller that should please all of Nances' fans.

Highly recommended.

Nance, as in his other novels, creates credible scenarios with sufficient techno-whiz that he is not forced into plotting that relies solely on Hollywood special effects to carry the drama. Nance starts with a plausible premise, then fleshes out the technical details - be they aviation or legal - to lead the reader toward a pleasantly surprising end. And to his credit, his use of language is, even with the more technical details. natural, unforced, yet still with considerable verbal style. It's a short, sweet read, from an author who respects his audience enough to research details and get them right without resorting to superficial treatments that annoy the more knowledgeable. The least credible detail? I don't believe his fictional software team would have made the mistake ascribed to them, although I defer to Nance's Gulfstream avionics that may have caused their mistake.

Nance is one of my favorite authors and most of his books have been either four or five stars for me. I have enjoyed his aviation thrillers, but this one is more legal than aviation and the protagonist, April Jensen, is not either; she is an executive with a cruise line that has nothing to do with the story.

April finally gets a search underway for her missing parents when their Albatross suddenly disappears - a military black ops project fails during the final test, almost killing everyone on board the Gulfstream - Ben Cole the software designer suspects sabotage when he finds extra code in the program which then suddenly disappears - April's father is also a 747 captain with a major airline and he is upset when an overzealous FAA inspector arbitrarily reclines his pilot's license - the coverup seems to involve the Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, FAA, FBI, and may extend even to the Oval Office - April, her family and friends are all threatened to drop their investigation and legal actions or else . . .

Some of the story was over-the-top but Nance painted the characters with such vivid detail that they came alive and elevated the book to at least a three star. But that being said, I have to admit that I read this book many years ago and only remembered one small detail.

If I read a book and cannot remember what it's about a year later, it was a pretty bad book. For this one, I couldn't remember what was happening less than a week after I read it. The topic was a good one, but the overall plot just wasn't doing it for me. The characters were everything but memorable and the plot could definitely have been a little more exciting.

John Nance's last few books have deviated from his orginal thrillers that were totally focused on commercial aviation. He should get back to what he did best ... I won't buy any more of these non-commercial aviation-based bores. Sorry, John!

Held my interest from cover to cover.