"Heart-stopping stuff."
- San Francisco Chronicle

"Brilliantly hair-raising."
- Publishers Weekly

"Moves at Concorde speed."
- People

(Review 1 of 6)
Los Angeles Times
December 3, 2000
The Best Fiction of 2000

Editor's Note: This year, the Los Angeles Times considered more than 1,200 books. Of these, our contributors reserved their highest praise for 106 novels and short story collections, 26 children's books and 113 works of nonfiction. Their original reviews have been edited and condensed for reasons of space.

BLACKOUT
John J. Nance
Putnam, $23.95 (436p)

Talk about suspense! This one's a humdinger. In John J. Nance's "BLACKOUT," a passenger jet crashes at the outset while flying over the Gulf of Mexico, then soon another jet goes down after it flies out of Hong Kong. Terrorists may be using some new secret weapon that endangers air traffic everywhere. The world goes on mayhem watch. The media go ballistic. The public panics. Government agencies mobilize to identify and eliminate the threat. Is it economic or political blackmail? Or is the government covering something up?

Since "BLACKOUT" is an aviation thriller (and a damn good one), that hair-raising experience gets a lot of anxious pages, and so do other travails in air and on the ground, where every kind of motorized transport and electronic devise is pressed into service. The thrills come thick and fast, skin-of-the-teeth escapes run riot, relentless high stakes devilry traces a trail of corpses, roguery on a rampage dogs the protagonists.

But readers can rest easy. True to the laws of the genre, they triumph in the end. What was it Oscar Wilde once said? "the good end happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means." Nance is a superb fictioneer.

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(Review 2 of 6)
Publishers Weekly
BLACKOUT

Arguably the king of the modern-day aviation thriller, Nance is in top form in this white-knuckle adventure about terrorism and heroism in the air and on land. From the jungles of Vietnam to the forests around Seattle and on several harrowing plane trips in between, FBI Agent Kat Bronsky and Washington Post reporter Robert MacCabe investigate why American jumbo jets are falling out of the sky.

All the crashes have striking similarities: pilots were either killed or left blind by bright flashes that exploded just in front of the cockpit while the planes were in midair. Equally confusing is the appearance, then disappearance, of a corporate jet in the vicinity of all the crashes. And whoever is orchestrating the fatal air campaign has neither taken credit nor made any demands. After weathering many attempts on their lives by a shadowy terrorist group, Bronsky and MacCabe finally figure out what's happening: the terrorists are using a special ray gun stolen from the government to disable airplanes in flight. Their intent is to cause so much panic in the travel industry that it will disable the U.S. airline fleet. But why? The author's seventh aviation thriller (PANDORA'S CLOCK; THE LAST HOSTAGE) features, as usual, a completely new cast of characters who mix like old friends and enemies amid the non-stop action, never-say-die theatrics and stealth conspiracies. While the silly romance between MacCabe and Bronsky should have been jettisoned on takeoff, Nance continues to craft brilliantly hair-raising in-flight emergency scenes and brings this turbulent ride to a rousing, well-developed finale that comes together smoothly on final approach.
Author tour. (Feb.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information

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(Review 3 of 6)
Barnes & Noble From our Editors - Tom Piccirilli
BLACKOUT

Fly the Deadly Skies... An involving novel of terrorism and highly placed corruption, BLACKOUT is the latest from John J. Nance, the best-selling author of such well-received heart-stoppers as PANDORA'S CLOCK and MEDUSA'S CHILD.

With BLACKOUT the proclaimed master of the airplane-disaster thriller once again melds all of his aeronautic expertise into a perilous, action-packed foray that adds enough new ingredients to his signature formula to keep the story fresh and exciting -- and the reader hooked until the novel's shattering denouement.

When an American MD-11 mysteriously crashes in Cuban waters killing all on board, the "cold war" with Castro suddenly begins to heat up. Did Cuba fire on the plane for entering its air space? To confound matters further, the black box flight recorders seem to have been tampered with; the last several minutes have been erased.

Kat Bronsky, an FBI agent who is also a specialist in terrorism, is on assignment in Hong Kong while delivering a seminar on the latest in antiterrorist protocol. While there she's sought out by Robert MacCabe, a journalist claiming to know inside information regarding the cause of the MD-11 crash. While Kat has nothing to do with that particular investigation, she's willing to hear MacCabe out.

Suddenly MacCabe, who has barely begun to tell Kat what he knows, is attacked by two assassins and barely escapes. Promising to tell the rest of his story to Kat back in Los Angeles, MacCabe boards a Boeing 747-400. When a bizarre explosion shortly after takeoff kills the captain and leaves the copilot blinded, the crew and passengers of the 747 must work together in order to overcome their dire situation and get the plane safely back on the ground. While MacCabe struggles 30,000 feet in the air to aid in whatever way he can, Kat is given the task of investigating the phantom Global Express aircraft seen in the skies just before the explosion. As each battle to stay alive in the midst of a growing conspiracy, Kat and McCabe sail closer to the answers that they seek. But will the answers come in time to save MacCabe and 300 innocent others from a horrible fate?

Compelling, nonstop action makes BLACKOUT a genuine page-turning, breathtaking shocker. While the lives of various passengers are touched upon, characterization takes a back seat to the forward momentum of the gripping story line. Still, we do grow to become involved with those put into horrendous jeopardy, so that each travail and horror endured on board affects us as well.

Nance's natural fluidity of voice is what holds this tightly woven tale together. The surrounding elements of a conspiracy capable of taking out aircraft in the middle of flight are engaging and terrifying, with Nance never letting up on the throttle of his narrative speed. If you're looking for a single-sitting read, BLACKOUT is guaranteed to keep you grounded in your seat for the duration.

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(Review 4 of 6)
Under the Covers
Very Highly Recommended
BLACKOUT
John J. Nance

In Hong Kong, FBI Agent Kat Bronsky and Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Robert McCabe wonder where do you go when there is no place to hide from people chasing after you? McCabe believes he has a partial answer to what caused Sea Air Flight 122 to crash in the Gulf of Mexico, killing over two hundred people. He is convinced that a terrorist act caused the disaster, but has no proof. Kat thinks McCabe has the evidence to prove his assertion. She plans to fly back to Washington with him, but at the last moment is called off the plane.

They agree to meet, but a bizarre incident happens. The pilot of the plane McCabe is flying dies and the co-pilot goes blind. The plane crashes in Viet Nam with only six survivors. Kat rescues them even as the saboteurs give chase. These unknown assailants seem to always be one step ahead of Kat, as if they are being fed insider information from the top. Still, Kat thinks McCabe knows something critical even if he is unaware of its importance because he is the target that she must keep safe.

John J. Nance is renowned for his pulse pounding thrillers that always take the audience along for one heck of a ride. His latest tale, BLACKOUT, is another triumph for an author with one of the last decade's best resume. The graphic story line feels so believable that many frequent flyers will take the bus just as many moviegoers avoided beaches after JAWS. The engaging characters gain empathy, as what happens to McCabe and Kat seems important to the reader. Mr. Nance provides his fans with an electrifying tale that shows how talented he is.
Reviewed by Harriet Klausner, Associate Editor 1/3/00
(http://www.silcom.com/%7Emanatee/nance_blackout.html)

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(Review 5 of 6)
From Library Journal
BLACKOUT

Here, aviation analyst, former commercial pilot, and novelist Nance plunges readers into a terrifying nosedive as Sea Air Flight 122, an MD-11, drops precipitously and inexplicably from the sky, killing all aboard. Investigative journalist Robert MacCabe has information implicating an unknown terrorist group that has made him its next target and is willing to bring down a 747 to keep him from unmasking the people behind a secret weapon of devastating force.

For help, MacCabe turns to FBI agent Kat Bronsky (heroine of Nance's THE LAST HOSTAGE), and soon they find themselves in a deadly race to learn the truth, while elements of the government (CIA? FBI?) seem arrayed against them. Nance is at his best in several gripping flight sequences, particularly that of a doomed 747. Though the situations are sometimes implausible and the characters are thin, the melodramatic action, bolstered by an ever-increasing threat, will propel readers at breakneck speed to the final confrontation. For all public libraries.
[Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/01/99.]-Ronnie H. Terpening, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson

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(Review 6 of 6)
From School Library Journal
BLACKOUT

YA-Opening with a Boeing 747 rising from the Hong Kong airport, this gripping novel grabs readers from the first page. Within minutes, a flash of light illuminates the cockpit, blinds the pilot, and causes the jet to plummet, killing everyone onboard. Kat Bronsky, an FBI agent and terrorism specialist, is called in to investigate.

Questions soon arise as to the involvement of outside forces. When another commercial jet suffers the same fate, Kat finds that other government agencies are asking questions as well as covering up information. Readers are taken on a spine-tingling adventure as passengers in yet another doomed jet struggle to save themselves and discover that someone does not want any witnesses. Thus, Agent Bronsky and the remaining survivors must go on the run. They cannot trust anyone except themselves as there appear to be governmental leaks, and several attempts are made on their lives. Bronsky tracks the mystery from the Orient, across the Pacific to the American Northwest where readers are treated to vivid descriptions of both the varying landscapes and cultural influences. A fast-paced adventure with many ups and downs ending in a surprise, edge-of-your-seat showdown.
-Anita Short, W. T. Woodson High School, Fairfax, VA Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

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