Product Description

1939. The world's most luxurious airliner is heading straight into a storm of international intrigue, violence, war, and betrayal...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #36392 in Books
• Published on: 1992-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 526 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780451173133
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

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 Kirkus Reviews
With the Dark Ages (The Pillars of the Earth, 1989) out of his system, Ken Follett returns to the spies, sex, and Nazis that did so well for him in Eye of the Needle. Fascinated by the huge flying boats launched by Pan Am in the late 1930's to fly the north Atlantic route, Follett has cooked up a sort of Airship of Fools or Flying Grand Hotel about a Clipper load of rich folks and lowlifes fleeing England after the declaration of war. The passengers include a fascist marquess and his family--so much like the Mitfords as to include a Nazi daughter and her socialist sister; a cuckolded industrialist chasing his pretty wife; an aging movie star; a Jewish refugee physicist; a suspected mafioso; a rich, powerful, but unloved American widow; the widow's weak, treacherous brother; and the handsome young jewel-thief without whom no such epic is complete. The danger that hangs over all these worthies is sabotage of the flight plan by an otherwise trustworthy flight engineer whose wife is being held captive in Maine by nameless rotten scoundrels. The merciless kidnappers want the plane set down early in order to remove a nameless someone before it reaches New York. Since the plane flies rather slowly and since there are three refueling stops, and since the beds make up into comfortable little berths, there is plenty of time for the passengers to search for the marchioness's priceless rubies, counterplot against the bad guys, stretch the legs in Irish pubs, quarrel, have reconciliations and indulge in a fair amount of good, healthy sex. No technothrills. No psychodrama. No fine writing. Hours of good storytelling. (Book-of-the-Month Split Main Selection for November) -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review
Follett is a master. -- Washington Post Book World

His best since Eye of the Needle. -- Publishers Weekly

Customer Reviews

,...spies and Nazis
Yet another gripping story by Ken Follett. On the eve of the outbreak of WW2, a clipper ship of the Pan American Line is due to fly from England to New York. These massive flying boats are the epitome of luxury and passage can be afforded by only the wealthy. It's a mixed bag on this trip-an aristocratic family who have been forced to leave England because of the fathers fascist views, a petty crook,an eloping couple who are being pursued by the womans jealous husband and various others.It's a gripping and exciting tale, well written in the Follett style and a good,fast,satisfying read.

Fictional tale about the last flight of a Pan Am Clipper as WWII begins
If you like airplanes, intrigue, World War II stories, and good writing, you'll enjoy this novel by Ken Follett. Follett always does his homework and I always learn from him. This story takes place at the beginning of England's entry into the war against Nazi Germany in 1939. It is about the last flight of the flying boat, the Pan American clipper (Boeing 314), from England to America. The luxurious, short-lived air ship began life in the summer of 1939 and ended a few weeks later when Hitler invaded Poland.

On board is a troubled aristocratic British family; an American actress; an Englishwoman running off with another man, leaving her husband; a young jewel thief; a criminal being returned to the states by authorities; a grumpy, demanding old princess; a German scientist and his companion; and others. This mix of characters and the situation in which they find themselves, make for an excellent story, especially considering the terrifying news flight engineer, Eddie Deakin, receives shortly before takeoff.

The writing is tight, the suspense builds with every page (as events in a well-crafted story should), and the wartime events are accurate within the scope of a tale of fiction. I found it enticing, riveting, and plausible. I cared so much about some of the characters that at the end of the book I wanted there to be a sequel. I wanted to know what happened to Margaret and Harry, Diana and Mark, Nancy and Mervyn, young Percy, and even Margaret's sister, Elizabeth, who left the story fairly early on. The only problem with this book was that the copy I received from Amazon had 32 missing pages! I had to borrow a copy to read the missing text!!

Another good Follett book with airplanes and a World War II setting is Hornet Flight (November 2003).

Carolyn Rowe Hill

Didn't Take Flight For Me.
Follett does his usual excellent job of researching his subject matter--in this case old passenger seaplanes--and the history of the era (a world spinning toward war in the late 1930s). And the writing style is fine, but the story just never got off the ground. I never quite got the point. It was as if he worked hard to invent characters and plot around a subject he wanted to write about: seaplanes. The whole thing seemed like a stretch. Think of it as "Airport 1938."

To Follett's credit he wrote in Night Over Water perhaps the steamiest sex scene I've ever read. I almost tried waking up the wife (dangerous). Plus I read this book after being completely blown away by his Pillars Of The Earth, so a let-down was inevitable. The book is better than most and probably deserves four stars. --Christopher Bonn Jonnes, author of Wake Up Dead