Headwind

By John Nance

My John Nance reading saga continues. Headwind is a little bit different then the other John Nance books I've read. It is more of a legal thriller than an airplane thriller. That said I thought that it was a engaging story that kept me turning the pages to find out what would happen next. Though I wasn't turning pages as fast as in Nance's other books. Oh well.

So what's that story? An ex-President of the United States is in Europe traveling, when a warrant for his arrest is issued by the United Nations (you can read the book for the details.) The pilot of the plane the ex-POTUS is traveling on is in the US military reserves and decides that it is his duty to protect the president. So begins the saga of a EuroAir 737 to fly to a safe country where the ex-POTUS can escape arrest. Insert a British Co-pilot who makes snarky remarks, a group of senior age veterans on board who offer to protect the president, a lawyer with a soiled past, another big shot lawyer, CIA agent, conspiracy, etc. etc, and you have your story.

I liked the story. It went into the intricacies of the UN Committee against Torture, which while interesting to read about did not make for the page turning thriller I was expecting. The biggest disappointment was the flying parts of the book. They felt like an afterthought as opposed to the main story that airplanes usually play in a John Nance book. But even that would have been OK.

Near the end of the book the EuroAir crew tries to secret the President out of Ireland to get him to the United States where he would be free of arrest, only to be forced back to Ireland by strong headwinds, where they make a no engine instrument approach. Wow what a nail biting scene. It could have been. But the scene felt so out of place, I felt myself not really caring whether they made it back or not. Nance tried to make me feel the tension of the situation but really all I cared about was getting back to the courtroom to find out how the legal proceedings were going to turn out. Yeah I never thought I'd say that.

As a departure from his aviation centric books Headwind was great. Unfortunately the aviation that is in the book detracts from the legal thriller that this story could have been.