Publisher: Blackman Associates

What a prologue to this aviation mystery! I was right there in that plane with the passengers and the cabin staff. I felt their fear and terror, it was so atmospheric, and it fuelled all my own fears about flying. 

Tony Blackman obviously has a very technical brain, great skill and his knowelage of aircraft and aviation in general is brilliant. The novel is topical too I suppose because of the BA Boeing 777 accident in Heathrow in January.

In this fictional story an aircraft ditched in the Caribbean Sea at night. It was one of a Worldwide Airline and Peter Talbot is working as an assessor for an insurance company to try and unravel exactly what happened.

It was heading for Barbados from Gatwick, so what went wrong? 

Peter’s long-term girl friend had just ditched him and his own divorce was just through so he decided to head for St Antony to begin his investigation.

The story continues with what seemed to me an endless repetitive narrative from various organisations involved as to what could have happened, what looked as if it had happened and what they thought did happen.  Boring!  At this stage in the book I really lost interest but of course as a reviewer I have to see things through, so on I plodded in hope.  

Obviously I’m not going to divulge exactly what happens in the investigation but it does however get quite a lot more interesting.  There is an element of romance, which lightens the mood too.

Murder, drug running and a missing diamond are all brought into the plot as Peter and Helen, one of the flight attendants, become more and more involved in more ways then one. Were they in danger as Helen remembers more and more about the tragic accident and its survivors? 

Many questions have to be answered and Peter is on the track, he knows how safe modern aviation is and he also knows it requires a detailed investigation when a flight has to ditch suddenly. Peter is there to protect the interests of the insurance company. Too boring for me but if you love aircraft and a mystery you will LOVE it.

Aircraft buffs will be fascinated by this story and all the detailed technical difficulties. Blackman has been very thorough in his research.  

The format is well presented and we follow the story as it is told on a daily basis. The Dramatis Personae at the beginning of the book is helpful as there are many characters in the story and it does tend to get a bit confusing at times.

Rather tedious for me but I’m sure there are many fans out there.