- Mass Market Paperback: 448 pages
- Publisher: Pocket (Feb 27 2001)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0671013718
- ISBN-13: 978-0671013714
- Product Dimensions: 16.8 x 10.2 x 3.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 204 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,198,788 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon.com
If you're intrigued about what a plane-crash scene looks like, and how investigators go about collecting evidence, Terminal Event will provide the details. If you like personal stories about believable people thrust into strange and terrifying situations, you'll find that here as well. James Thayer is the kind of writer who catches your attention early and makes you identify with his characters completely.
Joe Durant used to be a top investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board. (When a cop remarks to him that he was an NTSB legend, Durant says, "We're all legends. Anybody who can work a crash site automatically becomes a legend. It's a nice benefit of the job.") But the job took its toll, and Joe left the profession to work for Boeing as an engineer. This career shift, however, didn't save his marriage; his wife walked out and Joe was left to raise his 15-year-old daughter on his own. One year after the split, Joe's wife returns for a visit--but tragically the plane she's taking from Sun Valley to Seattle crashes, killing everyone aboard. Filled with grief and guilt, Durant asks for his old job back, specifically to investigate this crash. As the FBI becomes involved, and fingers point at everyone from Idaho militiamen to warring drug dealers, Thayer never lets his careful prose go beyond the bounds of reason. His focus is always on the thoughts and feelings of Joe Durant--a very fallible but also entirely credible hero for this particular time and place.
Other examples of Thayer's art available in paperback: Five Past Midnight and White Star. --Dick Adler --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Booklist
An airplane crashes near Seattle. There are no survivors. Joe Durant, a former National Transportation Safety Board investigator, teams up with his former colleagues to determine whether the crash was caused by a technical malfunction or a terrorist's bomb. But his interest in finding the answer is not entirely professional: his estranged wife, who may have been flying home to rejoin her family, died in the crash. This is a fascinating thriller, superior to Michael Crichton's best-selling air-crash novel Airframe (1996) and the equal of Ridley Pearson's Hard Fall (1992). Like Pearson, Thayer approaches the subject from a police-procedural point of view, presenting the crash-investigation process in precise detail. Thayer's technique--plenty of question-and-answer sessions, lots of false leads and frustration--generates tension as effectively as it dispenses information. Fans of Pearson and other procedural masters, including Ed McBain, will relish this genuinely engrossing novel, which contains a twist that few, if any, readers will see coming. David Pitt
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Terminal Event, James Thayer,
This review is from: Terminal Event: A Novel (Mass Market Paperback)
The book is great as I knew it would be having read others from this author.
Ordered 02/09/2011. Received 03/14/2011 If you're Canadian like me, don't hold your breath waiting for your book - it does take a while to arrive.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Complex Plot Lines with a Surprise Ending.,
By
This review is from: Terminal Event: A Novel (Mass Market Paperback)
ï¿Terminal Eventï¿ by James Stewart Thayer, Large Print, Beeler Large Print, Hampton Falls, NH, 2000.This book opens with a horrific scene: former NTSB investigator, Joe Durant, is running towards an airplane crash and encountering parts of human bodies. As a former National Transportation Safety Board investigator, Durant has seen many crashes, but this one is different: he knows that his wife was on Emerald Airlines plane calledï¿ Sacajaweaï¿. Author James Thayer then develops three major plot lines in the investigation into the cause(s) of the crash and each plot line depends upon the kind of people, the characters, involved. The first centers on Joe Durant, the NTSB engineer, who develops an engineering theory based upon improper design or, perhaps, incorrect maintenance. The second revolves around the FBI and ATF agents, who scour the Northwest part of the Untied States for skinhead groups who are anti-government enough to shoot down commercial airliners. The third plot line introduces a Saudi Arabian prince, in the United States for treatment of alcoholism. His presence on the crashed plane is ascertained from identification of those attending funerals and memorial services, and determining why those individuals would be at these events. All three plots compete and it seems, to the reader, that each competing cause is plausible: engineering failure, or terrorist attacks or assassination of the Saudi. But then, not to give away the surprise ending, the main protagonist , Joe Durant, discovers the one important clue that leads to the actual killer. The discussion of technology is appropriate to this type of mystery, and the hint of romance, with the hotshot FBI agent, Linda Dillon, serves to lighten the book. Author James Thayer does know the Northwest part of the country. Read the book to find out ï¿who dun itï¿.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fabulous page turner!,
By History Buff "owen11" (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Terminal Event: A Novel (Mass Market Paperback)
This book was gripping from the start. Thayer does a great job at detailing crash sites and the remarkable actions of the NTSB. The relationship with the female FBI agent adds an interesting dimension, without the typical tacked on love story feel, and certainly without the expected happy ending.It is an easy read, and I was also baffled by the nearly complete inaccuracy of the description on the back cover (there is never any suggestion of pilot error). However, if you can put aside the expectations of the story his publisher is advertising, this really is a great story.
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