The Passenger

Like his creator Patrick A. Davis, Colonel John Quinn saw some air time during the Gulf War. Unlike Davis (who came home unscathed and became an airline pilot, and then during an enforced layoff authored the bestselling The General), Col. Quinn caught an Iraqi missile. He went through several agonizing surgeries, only to find out that he'd never fly again. Now he's stuck inside the Pentagon as a lowly assistant to the Air Force Chief of Safety, writing reports on air crash statistics, mourning his failed marriage, and waiting for retirement. Then the president's brother is killed in the highly suspicious crash of an Air Force Lear Jet near Washington, D.C., and Quinn gets the kind of wakeup call Harrison Ford would die for.

Against all odds, Quinn is put in charge of this political hot potato of an investigation by a superior officer who up until now apparently hated him. Quinn's ex-wife, a washed-out pilot, turns up at the crash scene as a top official from the National Safety Board--and she seems to have connections to the president's chief wheeler-dealer. Everybody concerned wants a quick and dirty investigation blaming pilot error, but Quinn won't sit still for it. The pilot was a good friend and a top flier; Quinn's partner turns up lots of nagging details about sabotage; and a look at the life of the president's brother reveals a possible scandal of epic proportions. Davis might not be the most stylish writer in the world, but he knows how to quickly sketch in a solid background of Pentagon and flying minutiae against which he sets his shadowy tale. --Dick Adler