Flight Dreams

I'm not a big fan of stories told in the ever present present (What is that called?!) Any way, I find it rather distracting to read.

However, once I got past that little problem, I found the mystery and the characters to be engaging and interesting; well worth my time to read this book. I'll keep an eye out for more of Craft's stuff in future reading.

It's obvious that this is the first in the series about Mark Manning. The characters are a little too "easy" in that they tend to be described in terms of their appearance, and it gets a little preachy at times (even though I agree with what is being preached...). However, Craft still writes a darn good mystery and I had to really restrain myself from flipping to the end to peek at the resolution. I'm definitely reading the rest of his books!

I found the writing in this first book very immature. The plot was set up so that you pretty much knew what the newspaper reporter/detective would find, but then it meandered all over the place for a while before actually getting to the main event. Meanwhile, there were frequent viewpoint shifts, sometimes paragraph by paragraph, a writing technique I find particularly annoying. Finally we get to the main action and things are pretty interesting, until the author starts dropping more red herrings, just when we're supposed to be getting clear on what actually went on. He never resolves these, but leaves us with a new mystery at the end, presumably a come-on for the next book.

I liked the characters and the newspaper setting, so maybe I'll show more try another one later in the series, but I certainly don't recommend starting with this one. show less

First in the series. Follows Mark Manning a reporter in Chicago. He's been reporting on the disappearance of an heiress for 7 years. Her estate is about to be closed with her presumed death. But Manning doesn't believe she's dead and is out to prove it.