 |
 |
Sign in/joinLanguage: English [ others ]
Over forty million books on members' bookshelves.
|
Loading... Headwindby John J. Nance
LibraryThing recommendationsMember recommendationsLoading...
won't like
will probably not like
will probably like
will like
will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. I enjoy Nance's books, but this one has been my least favorite. It combines his knowledge of aviation and the legal system. The international law portions of this book were not my cup of tea. sgillette | Aug 3, 2008 |   Nance is a lawyer and a pilot and this book shows his ability with both. The plot opens on a routine stop of a flight in Athens where the Greeks try to arrest a former U.S. President on a warrant issued by Peru for crimes committed during a drug raid he ordered while in office. The pilot of the plane decides rather than allow this to happen, he takes off from the gate without permission and gets into the air to gain time to sort out what is going on. So begins a hopscotch game of cat and mouse with the president to be arrested in any country they land. Unable to reach America in the 737, the pilot and the president's lawyer try figure out where to land and how to keep the president from being extradited, where he will be quickly tried and executed. I love thrillers and this is a good one. I read the entire book in one day. I couldn't put it down, even though I was bone tired and not feeling well. The legal mumbo jumbo is kept to a minimum. What is there is understandable, even though it is obvious that it is complicated. Throughout the book, airplanes figure in at every angle with plenty of action to keep it interesting. I enjoyed the explanations of behind the scenes protocol of commercial airlines. Good book. (  )DanStratton | Dec 10, 2007 | 0.050 seconds to build listing
Amazon.com (ISBN 0515132624, Paperback)Veteran aviation writer John J. Nance, a commercial pilot and TV commentator as well as a bestselling author, weighs in with a timely thriller whose near misses in the sky can't compete for drama with the political suspense unfolding on the ground. Former U.S. president John Harris, a principled politician who walked away from certain reelection because of a campaign promise to serve a single term, barely misses arrest on an Interpol warrant accusing him of violating the Treaty Against Torture by ordering a CIA operation against a biological weapons laboratory in Peru that resulted in the mutilation and murder of hundreds of innocent civilians.The Peruvian government's hired gun is a British barrister who's tangled with Harris before; Harris's is an old friend and defrocked Texas judge who's languishing in obscurity at a Wyoming college when his former mentor calls on him for help--and who, not so coincidentally, has a deep-seated fear of flying. An added fillip is the plot's many references to the ongoing extradition battle over former Chilean President Augusto Pinochet on similar charges. But the real hero of this fast-paced suspense story is Craig Dayton, a reserve military officer and captain of the Boeing 737 that's running out of fuel as it searches for a safe harbor for Harris--not easy to find, since every nation in Europe has signed the treaty and will arrest Harris as soon as he lands. It's a brilliant setup, and Nance handles it more than competently. Unusual for this writer, he pays as much attention to his human characters, their motivations and complexities, as he does to the aeronautical details. Harris is a bit overdone--what president ever walked away from a sure reelection win? And a secondary plot line featuring a group of veterans on Harris's flight who come to the aid of their former commander in chief errs on the side of sentimentality. Even so, this is a first-class read from a million-mile writer. --Jane Adams (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:05 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
Abebooks |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
