In All the Excitement, Nance Forgot to Put in a Plot
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Author: John Nance
Title: Headwind Genre: thriller Deliver me, I thought, from yet another lawyer who thinks he qualifies as an author simply because he (or more accurately his legal assistant) cuts and pastes huge chunks of boilerplate all day long. But then, I thought, this guy's also an airplane pilot ("a captain on a major airline," no less), so maybe in those hours of cockpit boredom, he has time to learn how to string together a coherent plot. But Nooooooo! In the foreword to John J. Nance's latest epic, Headwind, the author gushes about the "fun" of being able to write a novel that touches on both his areas of expertise at the same time. It's unfortunate that he wasn't able to write that novel -- at least not a good one, though I suppose Headwind will have to suffice. But let's look at the book, shall we? Dual Plot Lines, Dual Heroes It's a simple enough premise, and actually topical, too. Do you recall the furor a year or so ago about Spain's attempt to get Britain to extradite former Chilean dictator (and Senator for Life) Augusto Pinochet, so he could stand trial for war crimes? Just think what would happen if Nicaragua or Guatemala tried to get to Ronald Reagan... Interestingly enough, I heard an interview with Henry Kissinger while reading this book -- it seems he's very careful about his travel arrangements these days. Well, there you have the plot: John Harris, a retired U S President, is out galivanting about on the rubber-chicken circuit (sounds a lot like RR to me) when the Peruvian Head Honcho, El Presidente Miraflores, decides to get even with him for a CIA-backed Sendero Luminoso raid gone horribly bad during Harris' term. The Peruvians acquire the services of one of the world's foremost International lawyers (Sir Wm. Suart Campbell, KBE), and attorney Campbell arranges for Harris to be served a warrant for his arrest after boarding his plane in Athens. Craig Dayton (the heroic airline pilot) subverts the plot by blasting free from the jetway, taking off while implying that a hijack attempt is in progress, and heading for Rome. Meanwhile, the ex-President -- who, predictably enough, has a personal history with opposing counsel Sir William -- arranges his own legal counsel. It's one Jay Reinhart, a defrocked Dallas judge currently teaching Business law at the University of Wyoming. We learn of Reinhart that he's a fantastic lover who can also cook a great breakfast, long before we know anything about his legal credentials... such is Nance's transparency. Be that as it may, Reinhart, too, has a history with Sir William -- seems he actually defeated him in court once, years before his disastrous stint as a judge in Texas, back when Reinhart was in Harris' law firm. Does your head hurt yet? Reinhart pulls strings to direct Harris on the ground in a safe location, but the President is still not out of the woods -- he can't get home in the plane he's on and he can't get off that plane to another one. Well, it could be worse -- at least he's seated in first class... Reinhart and Harris converge on London, playing right into the hands of Sir William. What did they expect? it is, after all, his home field! And then Reinhart gets another bright idea, and the action shifts to yet another country. And there's yet another bit of airborne chicanery as the pilots pretend yet another disaster so they can sneak away... But in the meantime, a potentially damning piece of evidence suddenly rears its ugly head, and Reinhart must find some way to make it disappear (legally speaking, of course). As our Jay's contemplating his own bag of tricks, the heroic pilot and his co-pilot (and, of course, the chief cabin attendant, who is -- naturally -- the pilot's bedmate) break yet more international air regulations cowboying about Europe and beyond. Of course, through it all, we sense that Reinhart (whose current girlfriend left in a huff [but not much else] in his first appearance in the book) and the President's luscious young assistant are headed for the nearest set of satin sheets in the last reel... Now does it hurt? Turbulent Prose The tangled plot has a few moments in which it rises above rotten to merely mundane. One cannot deny that there are exciting passages in the book -- one of which is the tale of Reinhart's flight from Laramie to Denver in a two-seater plane with an inexperienced pilot, during near whiteout conditions. This particular section, however, reeks of Nance's contempt for amateur pilots, as the novice pilot makes mistake after mistake -- forgetting to turn up the receiver volume on the radio, forgetting to adjust the fuel mixture after reaching cruising altitude... Well, I've got news for you John: you ain't exactly the world's finest practitioner of the English language, either -- and this is your tenth published book! To wit: The colloquial phrase is "he's not worth a tinker's dam"; there's no n; and you really should learn the true meaning of begging the question: it means (more or less) to answer the question by restating it, not to raise a question. But I digress... Especially at the beginning of the book, reading through Nance's prose is much like wading in thigh-deep water. And the rest of the book's not much better: witness this fine piece of writing: The routine intramural scramble to be the first to notify the White House with the most correct information sent staff members scurrying in each agency, but the first call received in the White House Situation Room came from Langley -- a fact that the CIA staffer duly noted with both pride and premeditated intent to brag. One sentence, fifty-four words, eight prepositions, three punctuation marks. And I thought I wrote impenetrable sentences! Puny Plodding The plot of Headwind is childishly simple. I was able to guess in advance where the plane would go next on two of its three legs, and also correctly divined Reinhart's courtroom strategy for doing away with that nasty piece of evidence. And I'm neither an airline pilot nor a lawyer, just a simple country geologist. The characters are stereotypical and paper-thin, sketched in almost cartoon fashion. Everyone is suitably heroic (pilots and lawyers), suitably devious (politicians), suitably beddable (all women), suitably insane (foreign heads of state). I grew weary of all the suitability. The situations are trite -- a pilot who's sleeping with cabin crew: what a surprise! and the ending too pat, too predictable. Looks like Nance's writing wasn't able to fight through the head winds on this one. all content copyright © 2014 by scmrak
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