(Review 1 of 4)
SKYHOOK
Reviewed by Waka Tsunoda
Associated Press Writer
Posted April 11, 2003

Fasten your seat belts! John J. Nance, the best-selling author of aviation thrillers, has just taken off with his latest novel, "Skyhook." And, as usual, readers are in for death-defying plane rides, lively dialogue and realistic characters who survive crises with courage and humor.

The story opens with a typical Nance-style emergency. Ben Cole, an electrical engineer, is aboard a Gulfstream jet over the Gulf of Alaska, testing a super secret computer program he has designed for the U.S. Air Force. Dubbed "Skyhook," it aims by remote control to land a military aircraft whose crew has been disabled. Something goes wrong, though, and the computer-guided jet dives and almost crashes.

At the same time and in the same area, a small, private plane piloted by an airline captain loses control and sinks in the Gulf. The pilot, Arlie Rosen, and his wife survive, but the FAA yanks his license, claiming that the plane crashed because he was drunk and reckless.

As Cole furiously tries to find out his computer program has been sabotaged, Rosen's daughter, April, tries to discover the true cause of her father's accident. The two inadvertently become threats to the Pentagon and others who want to keep the true -- and surprising -- purpose of "Skyhook" under wraps.

Nance always takes a warmhearted and sympathetic attitude toward his characters, but "Skyhook" is probably the most warmhearted of all. Here, even villains aren't really villains in the conventional sense. With a hidden patriotic theme to be revealed at the very end, "Skyhook" is an aviation thriller that should appeal to post-Sept. 11 readers.

The author, a lieutenant colonel in the USAF Reserves and a retired airline captain, has hands-on knowledge of aerodynamics. But unlike other techno-thriller writers, he never lets machines rule his story. If a jet engine malfunctions, he focuses on his character's emotional reaction, rather than the mechanical details.

This, combined with his uncanny insight into the human mind, makes "Skyhook" and Nance's other novels engrossing and engaging reads.

In his nine novels -- which have been translated into a total of 11 languages -- Nance, an attorney and an internationally recognized aviation safety analyst, has brought to public awareness hidden problems that could lead to in-flight disaster.

In "Pandora's Clock," for example, he raises the specter of air travelers spreading deadly germs worldwide. In "Turbulence" he explores a jet passenger mutiny against a cost-cutting, incompetent airline, which endangers their safety.

In "Blackout" he makes his readers think about what would happen if both the pilot and co-pilot got incapacitated in mid-flight, leaving no one to fly the plane. He even dramatizes in "Medusa's Child" the case of a cargo plane carrying a ticking thermonuclear bomb, which, if detonated, can destroy every computer chip over an entire continent.

Wild imagination? Hardly. "Pandora's Clock," published in 1995, mentions a U.S.-trained terrorist's attempt to fly a fighter jet into the Vatican to kill the pope. In "Blackout," which came out a year and a half before the World Trade Center attacks, one of the characters talks about the possibility of a 747 jet hitting the twin towers because its pilots were incapacitated by terrorists after takeoff.

Fortunately, as he does in "Skyhook," Nance also suggests solutions to some of his thorny aviation problems.

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(Review 2 of 4)
SKYHOOK
Reviewed by Kirkus Reviews
Posted March 2003
www.kirkusreviews.com

Thoroughly entertaining thriller about secrets, lies (bureaucratic sort), and little guys beating the odds. "I'm a minnow challenging sharks," says fledgling lawyer Gracie O'Brien to her best friend April Rosen.

Waiting inside a federal courtroom in Washington, D.C., is a whole school of sharks-legal, power-suited, supercilious-representing the US government's defense against a plaintiff whose chances everyone (including Gracie) rates at slim to none.

It all started innocently enough when Arlie Rosen, April's dad, took off with his wife on a pleasure cruise in his beloved Grumman, which shortly thereafter crashed into the Gulf of Alaska. Plane demolished, humans-miraculously enough-only scratched though nevertheless, post-rescue, still floundering in a sea of troubles. Actually, fate's fickle finger began jabbing at Arlie long before the plunge. Flash back to Operation Skyhook: a brilliantly conceived program calculated to help aircraft survive terrorist activity. Nothing could be more hush-hush, so when Arlie Rosen, fog-bound, sideswiped a jet smack in the middle of a test run, it was the wrong place at the wrong time writ large. But Arlie's not alone in being out of the loop. The FAA, too, is flying blind, and soon enough a self-righteous, mean-spirited inspector turns up with a private agenda at cross purposes to Skyhook. Arlie's pilot's license is lifted-lighting fires under loving April and loyal Gracie-and suddenly it's David vs. Goliath, the phrase "due process" much in the air.

To the government, the transcendent issue is keeping Operation Skyhook under wraps. To Arlie, it's his pilot's license and his constitutional rights that matter most. Big government, armed to the teeth with resources, glaring down at little Arlie-an unequal contest? Well, never underestimate the power of aroused minnows. Nance's amiable cast is partly what makes his tenth outing (Turbulence, 2002, etc.) work so well.

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(Review 3 of 4)
SKYHOOK
Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted March 8, 2003
www.thebestreviews.com

"Great action thriller"
A black ops operation is in effect called the Skyhook Project, a way for pilots on the ground to control military aircraft that won't or can't return to base. The system is being developed by Uniwave Industries but one of their final tests fails and the system locks in to place at fifty miles above ground.

The pilots manage to regain control and another test is scheduled for Friday. When Ben Cole, the designer of the software for Skyhook, looks at the code, he sees several strings that don't belong.

While he is trying to figure out who put the extra code in, a seaplane goes down in the same area where the military operation takes place. After the coast guard rescues the pilot and his wife, a very prejudicial FAA examiner revokes the pilot's license. His daughter April and her lawyer friend Grace are prepared to use any means to expose this injustice. The American government knows Skyhook is responsible for the seaplane's mishap and will do what is necessary to keep the real goal of the project secret.

John J. Nance does for action thrillers what John Grisham has done for legal thrillers. The story line is fast paced with plenty of action scenes, but it is the characters who make this book a tremendous hit. April and Grace are two mid-twenties women willing to take a risk and fight the federal government to see justice prevail so their loved ones don't suffer. They make the novel though Ben is heroic in his own way.

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(Review 4 of 4)
SKYHOOK
Reviewed by George Cohen from Booklist
Posted March 2003

Skyhook, as Nance's protagonist Ben Cole explains, is a secret computer program designed to aid a plane having flight problems. In this author's latest thriller, destined to appear on best-seller lists like its predecessors, an aircraft that is testing the system runs into trouble over the Gulf of Alaska, and sabotage is suspected.

At the same time, the mother and father of a cruise-line executive barely escape a midair collision over the gulf. April Rosen, the cruise-line boss, and Cole are being scrutinized by the Pentagon. People employed there and watching over the nation's security fear that these two might discover the secret that could lead to Skyhook's destruction, jeopardizing aviation routes across the U.S.

Nance is a professional pilot with 30 years experience and 13,000 hours of flight time, and his novel, not surprisingly but certainly appropriately, is filled with "plane talk," including "stipstrewn," "altitude readout," "search pattern," "telemetry link," and "T-handle," to cite just a few terms.

This, his tenth thriller, could well be made into a television miniseries, as were two of Nance's previous novels. Librarians can't ignore the demand potential for this one.
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