How to Heighten Suspense Employing Ancillary Events

In writing my novel STALKING THE SKY, I wanted to associate the corporate raider, J. Stephen Girard, a ruthless, cunning predator deliberating on whether to seize a premier airline, with a merciless flying predator of a different sort, a trained falcon.

Here's an excerpt:

Finally, the Arab extended his gloved hand, held it there long enough for the falcon to gain her balance, and then cast her upward. Her jesses released, the falcon leaped forward, and with one beat of her powerful wings she was airborne and climbing. Higher and higher she ascended, spiraling upward until she was only a speck herself. Then she hovered motionless, the sun behind her, awaiting the inevitable moment when the guileless pigeons' flight would carry them beneath her.

Girard had sensed the excitement mounting within him as the peregrine sped upward. He felt a kinship with the soaring predator. Every part of her body had been designed by nature for her single purpose in life, the hunt. Success at the hunt meant survival.

The falcon had already chosen which was to be her victim and the point in the sky where they would meet. She seemed to wait forever, as if, hypnotized by the magic of flight, she had forgotten the kill. Then, almost too late, the wings snapping tight against her body, she suddenly plummeted. Faster she dove, until she was no more than a streaking blur. At the last instant, wings and tail spread, talons clenched, she swooped sharply upward into her prey, knocking the pigeon senseless. Helplessly, it fluttered downward like a pinwheel. Within seconds the falcon's claws clenched the stunned bird, and she was returning to earth. There she would mantle the pigeon with her wide wings before taking its neck within her beak and breaking it.

At that moment J. Stephen Girard decided it was time to bid for control of Global Universal Airlines.

Read more: STALKING THE SKY. bit.ly/PojdHz

Creating a Character Who Is Larger Than Life

I've written a number of novels, including Stalking the Sky or Stalking the Sky (Kindle); A Question of Proof or A Question of Proof (Kindle); Star Time: New Version & New Introduction or Star Time(Kindle); Birthright or Birthright (Kindle); and Deeds or Deeds (Kindle). In writing my novel, Stalking the Sky or Stalking the Sky (Kindle), I wanted a scene over dinner to accomplish several things: First was to give the reader a sense of the vivid, dynamic and virile personality and past of the legendary Ben Buck, head of Global Universal Airline. I did that by having another person at the dinner relate old anecdotes about him that would surprisingly prove important later on in the book. I also wanted to sketch in a little of the beginnings of what grew into the airline industry and did that, too, with an anecdote, this one about an early flyer getting lost on a mail flight. Here's an excerpt: Dinner was a noisy affair, laced with half a century of anecdotes about airplanes and the characters who flew them, people like Danny Morell, who had a mail route in the twenties. He was too farsighted to read the compass and too vain to wear glasses, so he followed the railroad tracks below him from one city to the next. One day fog rolled in unexpectedly, and when he finally landed at what he thought was Baltimore, it turned out to be Washington, D.C. "Take me to the Postmaster General," he demanded. "I want to bid on a new mail route to Baltimore I just discovered." Then there was the time Buck agreed to publicize GUA’s new jets, just delivered to replace piston aircraft. The plan called for him and a planeful of reporters to have breakfast in New York and lunch in Los Angeles; they’d be back in New York for a late dinner that night. It was an eye-catching stunt for a nation only three decades from biplanes and wire wing supports. Unfortunately, a new employee at Los Angeles Airport mistook a football team for the planeload of newsmen; lunch was gone when the jet touched down. "You know," the GUA man finally admitted after the shock wore off, "I thought they were kind of big for reporters, but I couldn’t be sure. I’ve never been East." Frey remembered the times during the war when the General, dog-tired from months of unceasing work to build an air transport system capable of supporting the war effort, would disappear for a few days of R & R. Frey was his driver then—that was how they met—and the one who shared the roistering hours when Buck let off steam. "We were known in every whorehouse in every two-bit town that had an air base. Only the General never gave his real name. He called himself General Benjamin," the small man recalled, with a wink at Buck. "Remember Annette, with the business cards? She had business cards printed to advertise her house, with a line at the bottom of the card saying, ‘Recommended by General Benjamin. ’" The table exploded in laughter, Buck’s loudest of all. Frey’s head bobbed up and down as he added, "Know what he did when he found out? Know what he did? He insisted on a month of free visits or else he would have his own cards printed up taking back the endorsement." The laughter burst forth again. "Annette’s cards started turning up all over Washington, and two other General Benjamins nearly ended up court-martialed." Frey waited for the laughter to subside. "But any girl with a hard-luck story, he was the softest touch in America—" Buck cut him off. "Nobody wants to hear that. Tell them about that time in New Orleans. Remember New Orleans, Pres?" Frey remembered. "New Orleans was the best. Everywhere we turned there was puss—pardon me, ma’am . . . there were girls. You know what that big stud over there did? He rented the grandest whorehouse you ever saw for one solid week just for the two of us. The War Department and Western Union were three days tracking us down to get a message to the General. The lucky son of a B who delivered the message spent the next two days there with us. Western Union had to send out a search party for him." The Old Man’s eyes were dancing as he picked up the story. "One of the councilmen got so damned horny waiting all that time for the house to reopen, he had the police break in and arrest us. They didn’t want to say prostitution was going on, so they accused us of ‘illegal entry.’" As the laughter died down, Frey said, with a faraway look in his eyes, "There was one city where a little girl was so sweet on the General whenever we were there we lived right in the whorehouse, like kings. And me, I never had less than two or three girls there with me at a time. They don’t make wars like that anymore." Read more: Stalking the Sky or Stalking the Sky (Kindle). ow.ly/mfX1S

How to Show First Awkwardness with Ex-wife Then Chemistry with New Love Interest

In writing my novel STALKING THE SKY, I wanted to describe the awkwardness of an ex-husband and wife meeting at a party after a number of years have passed. while also imparting a sense of their ill-suitedness. I also wanted to show how exciting a relationship might be with the man's new lover, who is giving the party.

Here's an excerpt:

As soon as Will began picking his way among the small knots of people to locate Donna, his high spirits returned. The day’s work had been a triumph. The party and the excitement of New York had buoyed him.

"Oh, my God! Will!"

He turned toward the voice. "Hello, Carla."

He had broken off with Carla the same night she asked him to move in with her, as he guessed she would; she had timed every move with exasperating precision. Will had told her he did not intend to be squeezed and bent to fit the empty places in someone else’s life.

"You’re . . . you’re in New York."

"Only for the night. How have you been?"

"I’ve been well, Will." She had regained her poise. "I’m into self-actualization now and it’s given me a great deal of confidence."

"The new hair style, is that part of it?"

"The hair style, the clothes—I think they express a freer, more open me. The best part is that I’ve been able to come to grips with my father’s role in my life—you remember me telling you about my father—and accept him and understand that he acted out of love. I can say all those things openly to him now."

"Isn’t your father dead?"

"That really isn’t the point."

A hand slipped through Will’s arm. "I see you two have found each other again. What do old lovers say to each other?"

Belinda had joined them. Her face was lit by a mischievous grin. Will refused to be drawn in.

"The really old ones talk about their grandchildren, lumbago and hospital costs. Belinda, this is a spectacular show. I had no idea you were so accomplished."

"Thank you. I’m glad you could come." She turned to Carla. "We literally bumped into each other on an elevator this morning. I was with Cassie." She turned back to Will. "Carla is engaged, you know."

"Congratulations. Do I know him?"

Will’s interest seemed merely courteous, Belinda noted.

"Dave Delauney. He’s gone to fetch me a drink."

"The way you say that bodes well for a satisfying life together."

Belinda said, "I hope you don’t mind, Carla, if I introduce Will to some people here."

"It was good to see you, Will. Perhaps we could have dinner."

"Perhaps on some other trip."

Belinda guided Will toward a large canvas. Gloomy colors formed a faint profile of the painter.

"That’s what I look like in the morning," she remarked lightly.

"I apologize for the way my compliment before may have sounded," Will said.

"It’s just that so many of Carla’s friends did nothing with their lives, and they all called themselves interior decorators or jewelry designers . . ."

"Or painters?"

"Or painters. Why do you paint your self-portrait so often? Narcissism?"

"Cheap model." She eyed him wryly. "People who dislike me say it’s a clever way to promote myself. Now, what about you? You live in Colorado, you said. What kind of work do you do there?"

"Legal work, for Global Universal Airlines."

"That’s interesting."

"Every time I tell people who I work for, they insist on telling me how they were bumped off a flight or lost their luggage. What have you lost?"

"Absolutely nothing. In fact, I’m still a virgin with my first set of teeth."

Will laughed unreservedly. With friends, Belinda’s funny, outrageous lines snapped the air around her like firecrackers. But with new people, especially men, enjoyment of them was a kind of test—one that Will had just passed. Particularly now, Belinda would have liked to stay with him, but she had other commitments.

Read more: STALKING THE SKY bit.ly/PojdHz

How an American Hero is Seduced by a Ruthless Financier

In writing my recent book, <ASIN: 0985314494> or <ASIN: B00GWTM998> (Kindle), I wanted to show how a certifiable American hero, who lived one of the great adventures in the history of mankind, walking on the moon, can afterward lose his way to the point that he can be seduced and manipulated by a ruthless financier seeking to take over the airline that recently employed that former astronaut.

Here's an excerpt:

J. Stephen Girard’s office was traditional in a way the French monarchy might have envied. The men took seats on facing twin Louis XVI settees that were ornately carved and upholstered in patterned silk brocade. Besides the settees, two exquisite commodes adorned with gold rococo scrollwork stood against the walls. Girard’s desk was a large Boulle writing table, trimmed with bronze mounts; it was at least two hundred and fifty years old.

All this was lost on the astronaut. He was a scientist, most comfortable with mechanics and quantitatively determinable matters, things as they were in the most basic operational and measurable sense. Despite the mystery that surrounded Girard, Craig Merrill’s first impression of him was quite unintimidating. He seemed to be the familiar sort of wealthy man who could command the presence of sports figures or movie stars or astronauts and then attempted to ingratiate himself with them. But in the next moment Merrill was forced to make a brutal reappraisal.

"Colonel, I will come to the point," Girard intoned. "Your personal finances are in disarray, and you have no present prospect of employment. As I understand it, all your debts, including the twenty-five thousand dollars loaned to you by Western Shore Savings Bank, now come to about forty-five thousand dollars."
Merrill sat bolt upright. "My debts are my own business."

"As a matter of fact they are mine as well," Girard responded with a half-smile. "One of our subsidiaries controls that bank."

Merrill’s hand moved unconsciously to smooth his thinning hair. "If you want your money back, it might take me a few days until I put out the word for some job offers, but you can be sure that—"

Girard answered quietly, but his words cut like a razor. "People would check into your credit rating, the controversy you instigated at Global Universal, the personal problems you have had, and what might be termed your present stability!"

Merrill stood up, his face flushed.

Girard halted him. "Before you make up your mind to leave, Colonel, let me tell you what I am prepared to offer." . . .

The hundred-thousand-dollar figure had a visible effect on Merrill, who dropped back onto the settee. . . .

Girard continued. "Despite your . . . excesses, I believe you are capable, and you understand airplanes and airlines. That will prove helpful to both of us. If my plans work out, you could be president of Global Universal within a few months. At times you will be called upon to do some little thing toward that end."

"Like what?" Merrill asked, but he was unable to mask his desire with wariness.

"Today we will announce at a press conference your association with Faranco and mention that you are also advising us on our investment in GUA. We own a good deal of its stock, and so that would be understandable."

"Sure, that’s fine."

Girard leaned forward slightly for emphasis. "Then you’ll mention how concerned you are about the safety of passengers riding GUA planes, and that you want to get to the bottom of the crash to find out why passenger safety is being jeopardized."

Merrill tried to object. "I fought for a lot of things in private, but we were arguing then about a matter of degree, not outright negligence. How can I—"
"The stock’s price will go down. When we finally make our move, dissatisfied or frightened GUA stockholders will welcome us with open arms—if they haven’t sold out long before that point." Girard leaned back. "Those are my terms." The words carried the finality of a steel vault slamming shut.

Read more: <ASIN: 0985314494> or <ASIN: B00GWTM998> (Kindle).

People Who Escape Air Crashes Because of a Premonition

In writing my book Stalking the Sky or Stalking the Sky (Kindle), I wanted to introduce another suspect as the air crash's saboteur, one who refused at the gate to walk down the ramp to board the doomed plane because she claimed to have gotten a premonition that it would crash. She would later remember something that occurred at the gate that would prove to be crucial in identifying the actual saboteur.

Here's an excerpt:

Through the opening the men could see the back of a blond-haired woman in a black leotard sitting cross-legged on the floor. . . . A murmuring sound emanated from the room as if she were speaking to someone. . . .

Off the screen and without makeup, the famous seductress's face seemed fresh and wholesome, her large eyes clear. She rose gracefully and approached them. The sex-symbol promotion upon which her early career had been built left her visitors unprepared for the intelligence in her voice.

"I usually meditate in the nude, so I thank you for telephoning first."

Clayton wondered how much more there could be to see. The deep V-neck of her leotard exposed large expanses of breast, and the nipples pressed visibly through the taut material.

"You were talking to someone?"

"To Rolf."

Both men looked stunned.

"Or trying to," she continued in explanation. "But he's probably holding off contacting me out of pure spite."

"You've heard from him since the crash?" asked Clayton sharply.

"No, have you?"

Clayton was confused. "Why would he contact me?"

"He was rather an admirer of the Bureau." Darlene gestured toward the large pillows spilled randomly about the floor. "Why don't you sit down?"

Clayton dropped clumsily onto a pillow after great exertion. Will followed with more grace, accustomed to lowering himself on the strength of his single full leg.

"I have a feeling we're not speaking the same language," Clayton said.

"His spirit must be quite confused. They often are, after an accident. It's difficult for them to make the transition when they've had so sudden and violent a passing."

Clayton took a deep breath. "Let's start again, Miss Valentine. Is your husband dead?"

"That's what your people told me. They found his physical body."

"Then who were you talking with before we came in?"

"I was trying to contact his spirit. He's probably wandering around out there."
"In Utah?"

"In confusion. Space and time don't exist in the spirit world. He's having difficulty making the transition, I just know it."

"Please, Miss Valentine, let's keep the conversation to this world. Was your marriage unhappy?"

She nodded.

"Unhappy enough for you to place a bomb aboard his plane?"

Her eyes snapped wide open in apparent astonishment. "Why would you think that?"

"Witnesses at the airport reported hearing you tell people the plane would crash."

"Yes, I knew it would happen. Oh, not the way you're thinking. I suddenly had a vision in my mind of the plane bursting into flames. It was terrible!"

Will spoke up for the first time, sarcasm edging into his voice. "You seem quite composed for someone who has just lost her husband so 'terribly.'"

"Once I could no longer stop him or all those others, it was clear to me that they were all meant to make the transition."

"Miss Valentine," Clayton interjected harshly, "the ramp agent told us that your husband walked aboard the plane with a large attaché case. Do you happen to know what was in it?"

"Of course, promotional materials for the interviews. Greater Good—the picture we just made together—opens around the country tomorrow, and we had a string of TV and newspaper interviews coming up. Denver was the first. We thought announcing the divorce right now would hurt the film."

Will bent forward, his prosecutorial training surfacing. "So you continued to live together—and hate each other. . . . Perhaps it was to your benefit to have him dead: more profits, no worry about dividing up community property." . . .

Her face grew very sorrowful and then began to twist in anguish.

"I'm so sad for you, Mr. Nye. I'm so sad for everyone who lost a loved one on the plane. You have so few real friends. You trust so few that each is particularly precious."

Her eyelids lifted. "I'm sorry. I really am."

Will realized that his fingernails were digging into his thighs and that he could not speak.

"Perhaps if your friend had been psychic," Darlene added, "he'd have been alive today."

Read more: Stalking the Sky or Stalking the Sky (Kindle).  bit.ly/PojdHz

Reconstructing a Downed Airliner to Learn the Cause of the Crash

I've written a number of novels, including Stalking the Sky or Stalking the Sky (Kindle). A Question of Proof or A Question of Proof (Kindle); Star Time: New Version & New Introduction or Star Time(Kindle); Birthright or Birthright (Kindle); and Deeds or Deeds (Kindle). In writing my book Stalking the Sky or Stalking the Sky (Kindle), I wanted readers to know how National Transportation Safety Board investigators reconstruct a downed airliner to aid them in discovering the cause of a crash.

Here's an excerpt:

Sunday morning in Fort Wayne, Indiana, is for church or sleeping late. For Will and Clayton, the morning was for viewing a reconstructed section of a 747 in a drafty hangar at the edge of an airfield.

Hunks of debris from 211, the first plane downed, were marked with chalk or tags and scattered about the floor, while the tail, still miraculously whole, towered high into the steel joists, emphasizing the devastation of the rest.

Tal's plane would look like this one, Will realized with a start. As a boy dragged along to church each week, he had pictured the Apocalypse like this—cemeteries littered with the broken toys of the forever departed.

"It's the most perfect flying machine ever built," Bill Ewing said softly as he led them around the twisted metal wired on wooden scaffolding into the rough configuration of what used to be the front end of a 747. "So perfect it can take off, guide itself across country, land and end up within twenty feet of the gates with the flight crew playing gin rummy all the way. Every system has a backup. It can fly routinely on three engines and land on two. It has even made it safely down on one. It flew two billion miles without a fatal accident."

Ewing pointed to the far end of the empty hangar. "Those engines can lift over three quarters of a million pounds of fully loaded plane forty-five thousand feet into the sky and fly six hundred miles an hour carrying between four and five hundred people. But if only ten or twenty pounds of that load is high explosive, this is what you have left."

Bill Ewing had spent half of his sixty years designing and building ever larger, more sophisticated airliners, and the last ten years putting bits and pieces back together.

"Where exactly was the bomb placed?" Clayton asked.

Ewing pointed. "Right about there. Above the left lavatory in first class. Whoever put it there unscrewed a ceiling panel that shields the light fixture, placed the bomb inside and put back the panel."

Read more: Stalking the Sky or Stalking the Sky (Kindle). bit.ly/PojdHz

Mutual Distress Over a Plane Crash Begins a Love Affair

In writing my book STALKING THE SKY, I wanted to show how, in the course of talking about her feelings about the death of her co-worker in their airline's recent plane crash and her fears about flying again, flight attendant Donna Harney can develop a rapport with the novel's protagonist, Will Nye, an executive with the airline, that can blossom into an intimate personal relationship.

Here's an excerpt:

Donna was standing in the doorway.

"Can I speak to you?" she asked.

He nodded.

She closed the door behind her. The blue eyes were anxious.

"You were kind before . . . and I have to tell someone."

The words seemed to hang back, like outnumbered soldiers. "Now that I know you’re with the company, maybe you can tell them for me."

She was leaning against the wall, relying on it. "I’ve never been afraid to fly. I never really thought about anything happening up there. The evacuation drills, the oxygen masks and life vests were just something you did as part of the job, not because you might need them." She paused to refocus her thoughts. A hint of her fear was beginning to quicken her words. "I should have been on that plane last night. Jeanne would be alive. I barely knew her. Jeanne was just a stew who happened to live in my new building and was willing to switch trips with me."

She turned on her listener. "You can’t understand what it’s like knowing you’ve caused another person’s death, and this isn’t the end of it. Every day I’d have to wake up to a job of flying in something that can kill me and hundreds of other people in an instant."

"Whether I understand or not isn’t the point," Will responded. "If you want to quit, I’ll call Personnel for you and advise them. Do you have another way to pay for your apartment?"

"We’re talking about my life!"

"Your home seemed awfully important a few hours ago."

"A lot has happened since then. I’ll just have to get another job. With a normal schedule maybe I can go to college."

"How are you getting back to Denver?"

"What difference does that make? Train. Bus."

"They take a long time. If you wait a few hours or so and can bring yourself to fly one more time, I’ll be able to tell you when the Westwind is heading back."

"You really are an annoying bastard," she said, anger beginning to replace the fear and the sorrow. "I was right about you last night, I really was."

"I gather then you don’t want a lift back to Denver."

Unexpectedly, she laughed. "I hoped you would at least give me the satisfaction of talking me out of quitting."

The laugh had been warm, her distress genuine. Will was caught off-guard by the unanticipated intimacy. His own tone softened.

"If it’s cheap advice you want, I’ll give it to you. But let’s get some lunch. I’ve got a two-thirty appointment I can’t be late for."

He held the door for her. She did not move.

"You know," she said, not bothering to mask the surprise in her voice, "it just occurred to me that you’re probably important enough to get me fired, the way I talked to you last night."

"You just said you were quitting."

With a smile she allowed the surprise to burst on her features again. "I knew I heard that somewhere."

Donna did not bother to change out of her uniform, but while she washed up, Will read newspaper accounts of the crash. With a sinking feeling Will realized that the intimations of a criminal cause could lay the blame for failing to prevent the mass deaths at his own door.

Read more:  STALKING THE SKY bit.ly/PojdHz

How Badly Does a Crash Hurt an Airline's Finances

     In writing my recent book STALKING THE SKY, I wanted readers to understand how airlines protect themselves financially against the possibility of losing an airplane. The airlines are well-protected by insurance and often by the way they may have financed that particular aircraft.

Here's an excerpt:

A moment later, he turned to Will. "Is the company’s insurance in order?"

Will nodded. The airline and its investors were protected, he knew, by a Lloyd’s of London syndicate that would make good on the liability to victims’ families within rather high limits. A second syndicate insured the aircraft itself: GUA would be repaid its share of the plane’s value, and the members of the public who had financed the rest of the transport’s cost by buying loan certificates and leasing the plane to the airline would be similarly reimbursed.

The Old Man reflected aloud, "The stock market’s been too skittish lately not to get terrified when something like this happens. The average guy thinks we’re in the hole for thirty-five million dollars’ worth of aircraft. Or else he’ll think passengers will stay away. Probably will, too, for a week or so. The truth is, recovering the cash value of a jetliner can be a damned blessing, although I’d rather have lost a 707—they’re older and a hell of a lot less efficient. Damned stockholders and smart-ass analysts don’t think that way. By noon tomorrow our stock should have dropped to eight or below." Buck’s fist slammed against the desk. "That’s just the opportunity that son of a bitch Girard has been waiting for!"

Read more:  STALKING THE SKY http://amzn.to/18Py6MJ

Is the Perfect, Untraceable Murder Possible?

I believe I created a perfect murder for my newly reissued novel STALKING THE SKY.  And not just the murder of one person, but of over three hundred.  And I did it twice.

STALKING THE SKY is the story of America's leading airline in crisis.  As a ruthless corporate raider is moving to seize it from its legendary founder, one of its 747s explodes in mid-air, killing everyone on board.  Then a second airliner goes down.  Sabotage is suspected.  Will Nye, the airline's general counsel who lost his best friend in the second disaster, is working closely with the FBI to track down the killer.

Obviously a bomb of some sort had to be employed with the killer able to escape after placing it, but how to accomplish that and how does one place it in the absolutely precise place to disable a giant aircraft built to survive a multitude of in-air mishaps?  I devised a scheme, but needed to be sure my scheme would work.  On a vacation trip with my wife, I entered the jetliner's lavatory and nervously went through enough of the steps my murderer would be taking to place the bomb until I was sure that I—and he—could get away with the crime.  Fearing arrest at any moment, I returned, sweating, to my seat.  Yet, like the murderer, I safely got off the plane at my destination.

A perfect mass murder?  I think it would have been.  I'll leave for my book's readers the details of how one gets a bomb on board and still makes a safe getaway.  But I'm sure that if Will hadn't found and tracked down a tiny clue I planted, STALKING THE SKY would have had a very different ending: The killer dancing all the way to a happy and very wealthy retirement.

So, I definitely think a smart, thorough thriller/mystery writer could devise a perfect plan to get away with murder.  The question is: How many novelists pecking out their daydreamed plots possess a killer's nerve?

Instilling Jeopardy in My Novels

In the TV quiz show Jeopardy, the stakes get doubled part way through the show and are raised again at the end in Final Jeopardy. For that last difficult question, the contestants can risk up to whatever they have won so far in the hope of correctly answering it and doubling what they've put at risk. Perhaps more important, the top money winner gets to return to compete for more prize money in the next game.

In my courtroom thriller, A QUESTION OF PROOF, the protagonist, Dan Lazar, a renowned criminal-defense lawyer, is divorced and badly misses his son. Moreover, burned-out and disillusioned by his success at winning acquittals for people he knows are guilty of horrendous crimes, he is ready to call it quits. He falls in love with Susan Boelter, the estranged wife of an autocratic newspaper publisher, who is seeking to take everything from her in divorce proceedings, including custody of their daughter. Susan's happiness and consequently Dan's as well are at risk. Suddenly, Peter is found dead, and Susan is charged with his murder, raising the stakes again for Susan and Dan. He yields to her entreaty that he defend her at the murder trial, an unorthodox and personally wrenching arrangement that puts more at risk for Dan. The stakes are raised even higher by Dan's urgent inner need to use his lawyering skill to save at least one person he can truly believe is innocent. In this case that person is also the woman he loves. But is she innocent or merely using him/  Events put his certainty in doubt.  Ultimately at stake is virtually everything Dan's considers worth living for.  The outcome turns on a question of proof.
STALKING THE SKY is my latest thriller to be published on Kindle and simultaneously in print on Amazon with new material and  new Introduction. Its protagonist Will Nye, the general counsel for America's leading airline, is feverishly seeking to uncover the identity of the saboteur who planted a bomb on one of the airline's 747s. To raise the stakes, one of the pilots who went down with the plane was his best friend, who saved his life in Vietnam. Nye's quest becomes an obsession. When he finally learns that yet a third airliner has been targeted and the woman he loves is one of that plane's flight attendants, the stakes--and the suspense--soar as high as the sky that plane is flying through.

Jeopardy is not just a game, it's at the heart of a thriller.