Rating: 4
Year: 1996
Genre: Techno-thriller
Read again? Yes
Everything's quiet aboard TransPacific flight 545 out of Hong Kong. Most of the passengers are asleep.
The plane starts to pitch violently, diving several thousand feet, then climbing sharply, then diving and climbing again.
By the time 545 makes its emergency landing at Los Angeles International, it's carrying 56 injured and 3 dead.
The captain claimed "severe turbulence" but radar shows clear weather for thousands of miles around the plane.
The flight crew leaves the country before they can be questioned. Everything seems to point to a failure in the aircraft itself.
The plane, a Norton N-22 Widebody--is shuttled to the factory for a complete inspection, but there's a catch: the team has one week. The boss wants immediate answers because Beijing is considering an $8 billion dollar purchase of 50 N-22's with an option for 30 more.
If the fault lies with the aircraft, Beijing will buy from Airbus instead.
Casey Singleton, Quality Assurance Liason and Press Spokesperson for Norton, is put in charge of the Incident Response Team. She'll be working with engineers and mechanics to either prove the N-22's soundness or condemn the company to a massive loss of business.
She's been saddled with Bob Richman, an assistant, some nephew of the Norton family who's being shuffled around the company to see where he'll fit in.
The boss is John Marder, the Chief Operating Officer, who was the program manager on the N-22.
Casey's team are a bunch of 2-dimensional off-the-shelf characters from Central Casting:
Marder is the Dark, Intense Company Man.
Doherty is the Mopy, Overweight Guy with a bad complexion.
Trung is the Industrious, Hard-Working Asian Genius.
Burne is the Angry, Truculent Red-Haired engine expert.
Smith is the Jittery, Fidgety Electrical Genius.
Wallerstein is the Efficient German Flight Simulation Operator.
Rawley is the Dashing Cowboy Test Pilot.
As soon as the investigation starts, everything hits the fan: one flight recorder is scrambled and will take some time to sort out. The strongly-unionized mechanics are angry because of a rumor that part of the big China sale includes moving wing fabrication to China, which would effectively kill U.S. production of the N-22 and thousands of jobs at the U.S. factory. Marder denies the rumors.
Bob Richman seems squirrelly. Casey starts giving him busy work and does some behind-the-scenes investigating into him. She finds that he did a lot of off-the-table flying when he was in Marketing. What's his deal?
The media gets involved: a tabloid TV show producer who fancies herself a Hard-Hitting Investigative Journalist. Shortly after the N-22 story breaks, an unrelated incident with a different airline makes her think she smells blood. She packs her hatchet and heads out to LA to get "the real story" about the N-22 DEATHTRAP!! She's already framed out the entire story, not caring about the facts, just the sensationalism and ratings, ratings, RATINGS!
Crichton frequently adds paragraphs or pages worth of technical or industrial information to explain things his principal characters should already know, such as the problem of counterfeit aircraft parts or how the government and industry actually interact versus how we would prefer it to be. Bob Richman is our surrogate. A lawyer, not an engineer or industry insider, he's someone for Casey to explain the technical stuff to.
Thick but not too hefty, and a page-turner. Crichton stays out of his own way, feeding you technical stuff as needed without straying from the trail. There's a lot going on--corporate intrigue, media hype, Casey's ex-husband who is convinced she's just breaking his balls, juggling all the engineers and mechanics without pissing them all off, trying to quell rumors about the wing sale to China. There's a Crowning Moment of Awesome when Casey puts the stupid, arrogant media woman solidly in her place during the Big Test Flight at the book's end.
The only real disappointment is the low-budget supporting cast, but that's only a momentary distraction near the beginning of things.
Showing posts with label Techno-Mystery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Techno-Mystery. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Terminal Event (Thayer, James)
Rating: 3.5
Year: 1999
Genre: Techno-Mystery
Read again? In a few years
Yup. Another disaster to stave off reading more Lackey!
Joe Durant is a former NTSB air-crash investigator; he left because he couldn't handle the guts and gore from people being torn apart at 200 miles per hour.
Joe's wife dies in the crash of Emerald Air Flight 37, a mid-size turboprop commuter plane. All 63 people aboard are killed, and Thayer is remorseless in taking us with Joe as he hikes through deep snow to reach the wreck site. His path is littered with bodies and parts of bodies.
He's hired on by the NTSB as a liaison to the FBI. In return, the FBI send their own liaison, Special Agent Linda Dillon.
The investigation begins. The black boxes are quickly found and taken back to D.C. for processing. The wreckage is plotted, tagged, and identified, then reassembled in a local hangar. The bodies and bits are tagged and bagged and identified.
It quickly becomes obvious that there was an explosion, based on structural damage to the airframe and on leg and ankle fractures on the passengers.
A bear poacher claims he saw a missile launched at Flight 37. The FBI guys start looking at crazy right-wing nutjobs.
NTSB investigators find cracked insulation on wiring. There were issues with electrical systems near one fuel tank. Joe thinks this is what brought the plane down: a spark in the center fuel tank.
Then one of the dead is identified as a Saudi prince; he and his two bodyguards were traveling incognito. Was it an assassination?
A box with $100,000 in drug money was found by some dim bulb in a trailer park; she goes on an $80,000 shopping spree. Then the Feds come sniffing around. Was it a drug hit that brought down Flight 37?
The CEO of the airline is attacked and savagely beaten.
Thayer's style is easy enough to read, though the book did drag somewhat. Thayer goes a bit overboard in explaining and detailing things (at least three people sported noses that had been broken and badly-set sometime in their past, including Joe himself). His characters don't seem to use colloquialisms very well--who, in casual conversation, refers to a "Harley" motorcycle only by the full name "Harley-Davidson"?
For that matter, who calls eye sockets "eyeball sockets"? I don't know whether Thayer was trying to be funny or not.
The story's not as convoluted as Nance's "Final Approach" and the ending is much less satisfying. The final act of nailing the bad guy went several pages too long, especially with the "cavalry saving the day" bit with the FBI agent.
Year: 1999
Genre: Techno-Mystery
Read again? In a few years
Yup. Another disaster to stave off reading more Lackey!
Joe Durant is a former NTSB air-crash investigator; he left because he couldn't handle the guts and gore from people being torn apart at 200 miles per hour.
Joe's wife dies in the crash of Emerald Air Flight 37, a mid-size turboprop commuter plane. All 63 people aboard are killed, and Thayer is remorseless in taking us with Joe as he hikes through deep snow to reach the wreck site. His path is littered with bodies and parts of bodies.
He's hired on by the NTSB as a liaison to the FBI. In return, the FBI send their own liaison, Special Agent Linda Dillon.
The investigation begins. The black boxes are quickly found and taken back to D.C. for processing. The wreckage is plotted, tagged, and identified, then reassembled in a local hangar. The bodies and bits are tagged and bagged and identified.
It quickly becomes obvious that there was an explosion, based on structural damage to the airframe and on leg and ankle fractures on the passengers.
A bear poacher claims he saw a missile launched at Flight 37. The FBI guys start looking at crazy right-wing nutjobs.
NTSB investigators find cracked insulation on wiring. There were issues with electrical systems near one fuel tank. Joe thinks this is what brought the plane down: a spark in the center fuel tank.
Then one of the dead is identified as a Saudi prince; he and his two bodyguards were traveling incognito. Was it an assassination?
A box with $100,000 in drug money was found by some dim bulb in a trailer park; she goes on an $80,000 shopping spree. Then the Feds come sniffing around. Was it a drug hit that brought down Flight 37?
The CEO of the airline is attacked and savagely beaten.
Thayer's style is easy enough to read, though the book did drag somewhat. Thayer goes a bit overboard in explaining and detailing things (at least three people sported noses that had been broken and badly-set sometime in their past, including Joe himself). His characters don't seem to use colloquialisms very well--who, in casual conversation, refers to a "Harley" motorcycle only by the full name "Harley-Davidson"?
For that matter, who calls eye sockets "eyeball sockets"? I don't know whether Thayer was trying to be funny or not.
The story's not as convoluted as Nance's "Final Approach" and the ending is much less satisfying. The final act of nailing the bad guy went several pages too long, especially with the "cavalry saving the day" bit with the FBI agent.
Final Approach (Nance, John J)
Rating: 4.5
Year: 1990
Genre: Techno mystery
Read again? In another few years.
This book's got more twists than a TSA agent's knickers. It's been maybe 4 years since I last read it. I don't think I can manage another Lackey book; the flesh and the spirit are unwilling and weak. So what's more fun than trudging through the next million-page "Valdemar" novel?
A plane crash, naturally.
Dr. Mike Weiss loses his wife and two kids in a terrible crash at Kansas City International--an Airbus 320 (Flight 255) coming in on final approach collides with a Boeing 737 (Flight 170) waiting for clearance to take off. A few dozen passengers and flight attendants survive, along with Flight 255's pilot and Flight 170's pilot and copilot.
Senator Kell Martinson (R-Kansas) is in his car at the airport (parked illegally in a restricted area), waiting for Flight 255 to pick up his mistress. He bails out of there when everything goes up in flames.
An Air Force C-5A carrying a highly secret "Star Wars" device (with a highly-powerful radar) is at the same airport. No one's supposed to know it's there, but there's a witness.
NTSB investigator Joe Wallingford is detailed to the scene. He and his "Go Team" do their bit and come up with some serious questions:
Was Flight 255 brought down by wind shear from the thunderstorm? If so, why didn't Air Traffic Control warn of such weather conditions?
Was it pilot error?
Was it interference from a highly powerful radar?
Who was driving the illegally-parked mystery car that suddenly bailed out of the restricted area?
As if this wasn't enough, a bunch of right-wing loonies from Louisiana are screaming that their congressman, Larry Wilkins (R-Louisiana) was assassinated by government operatives: Wilkins was on flight 255 and he knew about the super-secret "Star Wars" thingie and its highly-powerful radar.
Oh, there's more. There's the NTSB Board chief who's got it in for Wallingford, with political connections and ambitions that lead him to pressure Wallingford to lay off on some parts of the investigation.
There's the FAA chief with pals in the airline industry who is trying to protect those pals.
There are irregularities in the medical history of Flight 255's pilot, and questions about his professionalism.
There's Wallingsford's "beautiful and brilliant" superior [it's right there on the back cover], who wants to inspect him personally. Yes, there's a romance angle to the story. But it doesn't get icky.
There's the guy who was driving that super-secret piece of "Star Wars" technology (with its highly-powerful radar) into the Air Force plane.
Can our guy bring all these threads together in 409 pages? Yes! Not only that, he gets the "beautiful and brilliant" girl, cures cancer, and defends Earth from a Martian Zombie attac--er wait. *goes back and re-reads the ending* Actually, the girl gets him. She was his boss, after all.
Nance keeps the story moving nicely. Maybe a few minor issues with dialog (feels a bit formal even in casual scenes), but I'm not going to quibble over that because things keep moving. It's hard at times to remember who all these people are--and then there's the FBI friend, the pilot's wife and son, the corporate guys at the airline, the corporate guys at Airbus, the press, and the Air Force guys. No one wants the finger pointed at them, no one will take responsibility for the crash. All the finger-pointing is just like in real life.
I think the book could have been shorter, but I'm only going to crash half a point.
Year: 1990
Genre: Techno mystery
Read again? In another few years.
This book's got more twists than a TSA agent's knickers. It's been maybe 4 years since I last read it. I don't think I can manage another Lackey book; the flesh and the spirit are unwilling and weak. So what's more fun than trudging through the next million-page "Valdemar" novel?
A plane crash, naturally.
Dr. Mike Weiss loses his wife and two kids in a terrible crash at Kansas City International--an Airbus 320 (Flight 255) coming in on final approach collides with a Boeing 737 (Flight 170) waiting for clearance to take off. A few dozen passengers and flight attendants survive, along with Flight 255's pilot and Flight 170's pilot and copilot.
Senator Kell Martinson (R-Kansas) is in his car at the airport (parked illegally in a restricted area), waiting for Flight 255 to pick up his mistress. He bails out of there when everything goes up in flames.
An Air Force C-5A carrying a highly secret "Star Wars" device (with a highly-powerful radar) is at the same airport. No one's supposed to know it's there, but there's a witness.
NTSB investigator Joe Wallingford is detailed to the scene. He and his "Go Team" do their bit and come up with some serious questions:
Was Flight 255 brought down by wind shear from the thunderstorm? If so, why didn't Air Traffic Control warn of such weather conditions?
Was it pilot error?
Was it interference from a highly powerful radar?
Who was driving the illegally-parked mystery car that suddenly bailed out of the restricted area?
As if this wasn't enough, a bunch of right-wing loonies from Louisiana are screaming that their congressman, Larry Wilkins (R-Louisiana) was assassinated by government operatives: Wilkins was on flight 255 and he knew about the super-secret "Star Wars" thingie and its highly-powerful radar.
Oh, there's more. There's the NTSB Board chief who's got it in for Wallingford, with political connections and ambitions that lead him to pressure Wallingford to lay off on some parts of the investigation.
There's the FAA chief with pals in the airline industry who is trying to protect those pals.
There are irregularities in the medical history of Flight 255's pilot, and questions about his professionalism.
There's Wallingsford's "beautiful and brilliant" superior [it's right there on the back cover], who wants to inspect him personally. Yes, there's a romance angle to the story. But it doesn't get icky.
There's the guy who was driving that super-secret piece of "Star Wars" technology (with its highly-powerful radar) into the Air Force plane.
Can our guy bring all these threads together in 409 pages? Yes! Not only that, he gets the "beautiful and brilliant" girl, cures cancer, and defends Earth from a Martian Zombie attac--er wait. *goes back and re-reads the ending* Actually, the girl gets him. She was his boss, after all.
Nance keeps the story moving nicely. Maybe a few minor issues with dialog (feels a bit formal even in casual scenes), but I'm not going to quibble over that because things keep moving. It's hard at times to remember who all these people are--and then there's the FBI friend, the pilot's wife and son, the corporate guys at the airline, the corporate guys at Airbus, the press, and the Air Force guys. No one wants the finger pointed at them, no one will take responsibility for the crash. All the finger-pointing is just like in real life.
I think the book could have been shorter, but I'm only going to crash half a point.
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