Customer Reviews

No Return: A Novel

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no return features a character named wes stewart who returns home after 15 years only to become involved in a military coverup. he is on site with his news team when he sees a f-18 go down in the middle of the desert. he tries to get the pilot out but he is straped in by the harness. the military soon show up and take charge of the investigation. after that he finds his life and his friends in danger. this was a good departure from the quinn novels and i hope we see this character again. highly recommend it.

While an L.A. film crew was busy putting in a day's work for the Close to Home travel series, they witness the horrible crash of an F-18 Navy fighter plane. Wes Stewart, the crew's cameraman, rushes to the scene of the crash to help extricate the pilot. Unable to free the pilot because of a jammed restraint, Wes runs to get a knife to cut the harness, but when he turns to head back the plane bursts into flames and the pilot is killed.

The morning after the crash Wes wakes up in his hotel that happens to be in the city of Ridgecrest, his childhood home. It has been seventeen years since he left. He would not have been back if the episode weren't being shot at this location. Waiting to meet an old high-school friend Lieutenant Commander Lars Anderson at an old haunt, Wes picks up the day's paper and reads the article on the crash. Immediately he is thrown for a loop when what he reads is not what happened. The photo of the pilot was not the guy he saw in the plane and the article said the pilot was dead on impact. What was going on, why was the Navy misleading the public?

Wes, along with his girlfriend Anna, start digging into the crash and find evidence of a cover-up that involves Commanding officers and a covert operation testing a weapons system called SCORCH. Wes and Anna begin finding their rooms ransacked, footage of the crash and computers stolen and they are being followed whenever they leave the hotel. When members of the film crew go missing and Lars gets thrown into military prison, the situation becomes a fight for their lives as well as justice for the downed pilot.

Brett Battles writes a fast-paced story that takes the reader on a rollercoaster ride through the Sierra desert and leaves them gasping for breath trying to keep up with his brilliant cast of characters. Battles has a getting-to-the-point style of writing that I found engaging. This was the first of his books I have read and it most certainly won't be the last.

Reviewed by Jodi Ann Hanson for Suspense Magazine