From Publishers Weekly The opulent interior of the first airliner， the Pan American Clipper， on a transatlantic flight from Southampton， England， to New York in war-darkened 1939， is the setting for Follett's high-flying caper， guaranteed to hold the reader in his seat. Recalling a time when air travel was an exotic adventure， master of epic suspense Follett ( Pillars of the Earth ) spins an excruciatingly taut drama on the aerial equivalent of the Orient Express. Persons unknown kidnap the wife of Clipper engineer Eddie Deakin from their home in Maine in order to force Deakin to maneuver an emergency landing in the choppy waters off Bangor. Apparently the shadowy conspirators plan to remove one of the passengers， an intriguing group who include an FBI agent transporting an extradited mafioso; a Russian princess; a British industrialist chasing his wife and her lover; an American movie star; an Oswald Mosely-like aristocrat turned fascist， his daughter and her lover， a young jewel thief. Details of early aviation firmly establish the cast in their era and a tantalizing mosaic of subplots whisks the reader through a whirlwind of romance and intrigue. Follet soars to a thoroughly satisfying ending with aeronautical precision. This is his best since The Eye of the Needle. Author tour. Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information， Inc. From AudioFile Follett's early thriller， reminiscent of the 1950s' classic THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY， follows a plane load of passengers traveling thirty hours from England to the U.S. two days after the start of WWII. The Pan American Clipper is packed with a whole cast of characters， including a scientist fleeing the Nazis， a Mafioso being transported back to justice by an FBI agent， a movie star， a thief， a princess， and a Fascist . To complicate matters， one of the crew's family members is kidnapped to force the flyer to orchestrate an emergency landing. Tom Casaletto's glib performance makes this seemingly endless journey fly by with ease. His many accents are first-rate and more than make up for his tendency to pause unexpectedly in the middle of a sentence. A.L.H. © AudioFile 2005， Portland， Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile， Portland， Maine --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition. See all Editorial Reviews