The Last Hostage

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: 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: 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: The Plane Ride Of A Lifetime
Review: Ken Wolfe, an experienced airplane pilot utilizes his skills to achieve justice for his daughter Melinda. Bradley Lumin, vindicated from charges of kidnapping, rape, and the murder of Melinda, helps Wolfe to realize that his duty to find justice for his daughter will solely occur by convicting Lumin. Wolfe assumes that hijacking a plane will ensure justice for his daughter. Once in the air Wolfe convinces his co-pilot David Gates that an engine in the plane needs repair. An emergency landing in Durango forces the copilot off the plane thus allowing Ken to hijack the plane successfully. While airborne, Wolfe informs his passengers that a person has slipped into the cockpit with a gun and has threatened to obliterate the plane by the use of explosives, which are secured in cargo. Annette Baxter, the head airplane stewardess, converses with Ken only to realize that Wolfe lied earlier in regards to the "other" person in the cockpit. Annette concludes that Wolfe, the only person in the cockpit, has hijacked the plane. Ken Wolfe was startled to hear that Rudy Bostitch, the former District Attorney of Connecticut and soon to be Attorney General, has boarded flight 90. Bostitch, the District Attorney that presided over Melinda's case, exonerated Lumin due to a technicality. In response to the current event, the Federal Bureau of Investigation hires Katherine Bronsky, a rookie to negotiate with Wolfe. While refueling, Bronsky manages to sneak onboard the plane without proper consent from the FBI. After discovering more about the affair, Bronsky speculates whom the victim in this situation is, due to the fact that all Wolfe desires is justice for his daughter Melinda.

John J. Nance, the author of this suspenseful novel keeps one at the edge of their seat. Nance, an airline correspondent as well as an Air Force Officer ingeniously creates this novel, with the intention of exciting his audience. The author's writing style keeps one enticed due to its simplicity; for example, the limited usage of technical jargon and the facile ability to follow the main storyline efficiently assist in keeping the reader captivated. This book will satisfy anyone who seeks an action filled novel as well as an intense ride!

Rating:
Summary: The Last Hostage- by John J. Nance
Review: The Last Hostage is another classic by Nance. The aviation details are excellent as usual. The storyline is extremely gripping as well, keeping you on the edge of your seat until the end, when the story stops abruptly, but convincing. I recommend it to anyone, if you can stand the fact that there aren't as many aviation scenes as in recent books Pandora's Clock and Medusa's Child.

Rating:
Summary: Be Taken Hostage by the Best Book You Will Ever Read!!!
Review: This is by far the best book i have ever read. The last hostage truly does take the reader "hostage".
After the captain of the 737 takes the crew and passengers hostage until the Attourny General confesses to releasing the man who murdered his daughter, he finds out that the attourny general is in possession of kiddie porn, PLUS the attourny general has a secret about the captain's daughter's murderer that he isnt telling the police. The Last Hostage is an intense book that will keep you guessing until the end.

Rating:
Summary: Be Taken Hostage by the Best Book You Will Ever Read!!!
Review: This is by far the best book i have ever read. The last hostage truly does take the reader "hostage".
After the captain of the 737 takes the crew and passengers hostage until the Attourny General confesses to releasing the man who murdered his daughter, he finds out that the attourny general is in possession of kiddie porn, PLUS the attourny general has a secret about the captain's daughter's murderer that he isnt telling the police. The Last Hostage is an intense book that will keep you guessing until the end.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent read!
Review: This is the first Nance novel I have read, and I couldn't put it down! Started it at 9 in the morning and finished it just after 4. Very fast paced book. Other than the slight distraction that someone didn't catch the location glitch on page 303, it was pretty spellbinding.

Rating:
Summary: THE LAST HOSTAGE - A spellbinder to the end
Review: Unconventional and untested rookie FBI agent Katherine Bronsky is thrusted into the middle of a skyjacking of a Boeing 737 over the Rocky Mountains. The hijacker has a bizarre list of demands that Kat attempts to fill before the plane crashes and burns. The hijacker does not want money or free passage to an extradition-free country; the perp wants another perp brought to justice for an alleged capital crime. The irony is not lost on Kat and the others involved.

The tension and suspense climbs constantly until the story line lands on a clever note. Maybe not necessarily a plausible landing, but one that is entertaining and satisfying. This is a fun quick read. Arthur John Nance has made THE LAST HOSTAGE the reader, from start to finish.

Rating:
Summary: Unpleasant book
Review: When I first picked up the book, I had very low expectations. From the dustcover, I thought the writer was pandering to Hollywood. While this is not great literature, I found it to be a fun read. If you are looking for a good summer book, this will do. It has a fast breezy style even if the writer did use a cookie cutter approach to his cast of characters. If you are reading for entertainment, this is good choice.