Turbulence

Associated Press

Fast moving...Nance knows how to keep a plot zipping along.

Good Morning America

Nance...knows the airlines from the inside.

Publishers Weekly

It's unclear why anyone who's read a Nance novel is willing to board an airplane: Nance (Headwind, etc.), a veteran pilot, specializes in the scary side of flying, and his latest thriller delivers the suspense his fans want, even as its overcomplicated plot keeps it from reaching full altitude. Meridian Airlines is a major carrier plagued by greedy management and hostile employees; Brian Logan is a surgeon whose wife hemorrhaged to death aboard a Meridian flight, for which he blames the airline. As Logan prepares to fly to South Africa on Meridian, the only airline available U.S. government officials are growing concerned about the possibility of terrorists planning to use an airplane as a weapon escaping detection by flying under the guise of, say, an airplane diverted by mechanical troubles. Logan proceeds on Meridian toward South Africa, while the plane's sullen crew alienates passengers right and left; the pilot, fearing an engine fire, lands in a war zone in Nigeria, where the co-pilot is shot and left for dead. The plane takes off again, returning to Europe for lack of fuel, but a Nigerian warlord claims he has forced the passengers off the plane to hold them for ransom. To folks in D.C., it looks as if a passengerless plane is heading to a major European city, with evil intent; meanwhile, on the plane, the passengers actually are rioting. Nance's prose is serviceable, as are his characters; both lack subtlety, but do the job of spurring the plot to ever higher excitement. The novel's flurry of happy endings, however, will satisfy only the most Panglossian reader. (May) Forecast: The big question: post-September 11, will readers buy a thriller involving the threat of airplanes hijacked by terrorists? Probably, but don't be surprised if Nance sees a (perhaps one-time) dip in his sales. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Set in the near future with the specter of terrorism still looming, aviation thriller writer Nance's book explores the extreme possibilities of air rage and how a series of coincidences, circumstances, and apparent conspiratorial events can be perceived as a real terrorist plot. Both the passengers and crew of Meridian Flight Six are all pushed into their own whorls of anger by mistreatment and slights at all levels as the flight moves from Chicago to London and then toward Cape Town, South Africa. The worst villains in the piece are clear for the most part, but as emotions boil over, the culpability for mistakes by all the key players head the plane toward tragedy onboard and off. Nance makes the story engaging and believable, with two exceptions-an incomplete subplot with an infant and an obvious method of communication ignored when all else fails. Recommended, but it won't make you want to fly!-Joyce Kessel, Villa Maria Coll., Buffalo, NY Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Near-miss thriller about a commercial airliner threatened with hijacking-by all of its passengers. Meridian Airlines Flight 6-to London, then Capetown-has a crew remarkable for its special blend of ineptitude and mean-spiritedness. Its captain, Phil Knight, is a boob. Its chief flight attendant, Judy Jackson, is an authentic Messalina. Between them they succeed in so enraging 320 passengers that, collectively, they reach the edge of the first mutiny in commercial airlines history. Also on board this Bounty-like 747 is Dr. Brian Logan, the stuff of powder kegs. He blames Meridian Airlines for the death of his beloved wife and unborn child. Brian Logan, the powder keg, and Judy Jackson, the igniter, clash explosively almost at once. Punchable Judy, whose regard for her passengers is minuscule, and whose approach to maintaining order is Hitlerian, has already accomplished the inevitable: every last Flight 6 passenger wants her off the plane, with or without a chute. At this point, pilot Knight gets a reading that seems to indicate engine trouble. His much smarter copilot attempts to allay hysteria: the reading is at fault, not the engine, he insists. Panicked way beyond the reach of reason, Knight makes an emergency landing in Nigeria in the middle of a firefight. The copilot is wounded and left behind. By now NATO, the CIA, and other alphabet groups have become convinced that dread things are happening aboard Flight 6-and that it carries a weapon of some kind aimed at a European capitol. Meanwhile, of course, Flight 6's radio has gone dead. So, will the US Navy have to shoot down Flight 6, sacrificing hundreds of lives for the sake of thousands? A nail-biter if only. . . . If only aviationexpert Jance (Headwind, 2001, etc.) weren't quite so transparently manipulative. A less bizarre Judy, for instance, might have kick-started that old willing suspension of disbelief.