Frankly speaking, to my utter disappointment, this is not a typical Crichton novel.In the sense, it has no genetic imbalance, no insane monstors or no chilling sci-fi.Its basically another novel on corporate espionage and politics. Casey Singleton, a single mother and vice-president of Norton Aeronautics, a company specialising in making Aeroplanes.
A company of enviable reputation and a unmatched safety-record.All that is about to change as the pride of the company, the N-22 model aircraft used for commercial purposes mysteriously experiences turbulences for no apparent cause.The result, 3 dead and 56 injured.This single incident stirres up a storm of controversy.Suddenly, the press, the television and some old adversaries all seem to be after Norton’s skin.The top-guns of Norton decide to make Casey the scape-goat and put her in te line of fire.An unhappy union also decides to revolt against the corporation by going after Casey.life as she knows it is over for Casey, she has no future whatever the outcome, unless she can somehow find out what happened onboard the N-22...and she has less than 24 hours to do it.... Well, basically a interesting byline, but the novel is greatly spoilt by the extent to which Crichton goes in explaining the technical aspects of aeronautics.I mean, how many novels would explain Bernoulli’s theorem for you.
The result is that this novel seems more like a text-book rather than a paper-back.It astounds me as to how it became a #1 bestseller.But, women’s lib has something to cheer about, cause for the first time I’ve seen, this novel has not a hero but a heroine.Anyway, basically, even die-hard Crichton fans may have trouble digesting this novel.