Rating: 
Summary: Rapid fun.
Review: A commercial airliner is hijacked after an emergency landing. FBI Agent Kat Bronsky is on location and assigned as negotiator, after it is forced to take off almost immediately with the copilot and one other passenger left on the tarmac. But, some of the hijackers actions and demands don't seem to fit together, and a puzzled Bronsky keeps examining different scenarios looking for a key. Now the picture that has appeared is even worse than when she started, because it appears that the pilot is not responding to a demented hijacker. It now seems the Airline Pilot alone has decided that his only tools to correct an evil injustice, are a planeload of hostages, a bomb and a deadman trigger. Interestingly, Nance keeps dragging the characters higher and higher up the food chain while following the trail of a horrible murder.
Rating:
Summary: Rapid fun.
Review: A commercial airliner is hijacked after an emergency landing. FBI Agent Kat Bronsky is on location and assigned as negotiator, after it is forced to take off almost immediately with the copilot and one other passenger left on the tarmac. But, some of the hijackers actions and demands don't seem to fit together, and a puzzled Bronsky keeps examining different scenarios looking for a key. Now the picture that has appeared is even worse than when she started, because it appears that the pilot is not responding to a demented hijacker. It now seems the Airline Pilot alone has decided that his only tools to correct an evil injustice, are a planeload of hostages, a bomb and a deadman trigger. Interestingly, Nance keeps dragging the characters higher and higher up the food chain while following the trail of a horrible murder.
Rating: 
Summary: Good mindless reading
Review: At the beginning, I was confused. About halfway through, I started getting a little tired of the repetitive dialogue. About 3 chapters from the end, I decided that the circumstances in the story were pretty ridiculous. By the end of the book, I actually shook my head at the weird ending. But I did read the whole thing because I wondered what would happen next. So all in all, it was good mindless reading - just don't think too hard about the ramifications of everyone's actions. That's about par for all the Nance books I've tried to read.
Rating: 
Summary: A surprise on every page
Review: Attention grabbing who-done-it book. Just when you think there is no doubt who the bad guy is, you get a surprise. Great ending. Gotta become a movie.
Rating:
Summary: It just doesn't fly!
Review: Captain Ken Wolfe is a man beset with unspeakable tragedy. Apparently living a contented, normal life as a Boeing 737 pilot, his wife is killed in a car accident. Then his only child Melinda, aged 11, is kidnapped, tortured, raped, photographed in the midst of all of this horror, and killed. Ken Wolfe snaps. He contributes to the capture of the pedophile and then is forced to stand back in shock as the defendant is released on a "technicality." The anonymous phone call that led the police to complete a fruitful search, now becomes truly anonymous. The person the police detective swears called him, now denies the call. Wolfe and the police believe that man to have been the then US Attorney for the State of Connecticut. Rudy Bostich, the US Attorney and the "voice" the detective recognized on the other end of the "tip," disavows any knowledge of the defendant or the crime. Hence the "fruit of the poisoned tree" defense is actuated and all of the evidence of the defendant's complicity is lost. Two years later, unable to become an assassin, Wolfe boards one of his company's 737's where he is a left seat 4 striper only to find that Rudy Bostich, now a future Attorney General, is seated in First Class. Having failed at using normal means to get both attention and justice for his little girl, and knowing that his life is over without her, Wolfe hijacks his own passenger airplane to draw national attention and coerce Bostich to "confess." Sounds really, really unbelievable? I have two problems with this book. Dick Francis, one of England's most notable steeplechase jockeys, became an excellent and prodigious author after his career was over. But his books only "relate" to races. They are about the friends of jockeys. They are about GP veterinarians, about the tranportation of horses, they are about detectives investigating crimes at races. They're all about horses and horse people, but only peripherally. However Captain Nance seems forced to place the center of attention in the left hand seat. Everything revolves around the pilot. Female characters are one dimensional and always "fall" for the Captain. This belittles Captian Nance, because he's such a good story teller. There's a lot of interesting things that go on around an airport. A lot of them aren't in the cockpit. The other problem is the pedophilia angle. Bad move. Most people are disgusted by that and Captain Wolfe's potential medieval retribution offers little solace for the reader who is frankly turned off by that angle. I would read Nance again. But he let me down here.
Rating:
Summary: Needs A Rewrite
Review: Could have been a much better story if not for the constant repetition and flat dialog. There is a good plot here, but it gets buried. It will probably make a good TV movie of the week if the author allows a screenwriter to trim it down a bit.
Rating:
Summary: An Action Extravaganza
Review: Dr. Konnilyn Feig: I "love" action movies - to get away from it all. Nothing pleases me more on a weekend than to see movies like CON AIR, SPEED, 007, SUBWAY, AIRPORT, etc. And in that same genre, nothing pleases me more than to read a Nance book. I grab it off the shelves the moment it arrives and curl up and read it through. This book is his best - in a collection of "take your mind off things" novels. Even his non-fiction is exciting. What a great weekend thriller. Better than a movie.
Rating:
Summary: Story is contrived & fails to elicit sympathy from reader.
Review: From the time the Captain heads into the lavatory when he realized Bostich was aboard, reader is aware that he (Captain) could have no bomb, so why did it take the astute FBI agent so long to figure that one out? Were we to assume Wolfe just flew around have-bomb-will-hijack just in case he ran into Bostich? Couldn't work up any sympathy for Wolfe since he was in the process of terrifying people to satisfy his own needs - the ends justify the means type of scenario. Characters didn't ring true. Nance seemed to be trying to pattern his female FBI agent after the one in Silence of the Lambs, came far short. I stuck with it to the end, could have read something better. Won't recommend it to anyone.
Rating:
Summary: Nance does it again.
Review: Having read ever fiction novel John Nance has written starting with his 1st, I have to admit that he has done it again. Great book. Just when I thought I knew what was going on, the whole thing shifted 180 degrees. About my only real gripe is the same gripe I have with almost any book involving computers, but I am willing to suspend my training to enjoy the book. I loved the final ending. I was definatly taken for a loop by how this book ended. And I hope things ring true for this book like 2 others Nance has written. I think this would make a great 2 part movie on TV.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent reading and one of his best.
Review: I have enjoyed all of John Nance's books and this was no exception. The Last Hostage takes enough twists and turns to keep you guessing until the very end. While the crime in question were very grim, it made your anxiety to see justice served all the more acute. An avid reader of many authors, I highly recommend this one!
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