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danubooks 's review for:
Departure 37
by Scott Carson
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Is a plane crash from the 1960s tied to a current aviation mystery?
All mothers worry about their children, it simply comes with the territory. But when the mothers of hundreds of commercial pilots call their children and beg them not to fly the following day, warning that if they don't heed the plea they will die, that's definitely beyond the norm. It also leaves US airspace empty on an October day, something not seen since 9/11. Weirder still? No mother remembers making the call...and some of the mothers were no longer alive to have made it. Meanwhile, 16 year old Charlie is living on the coast of Maine (not her choice, she's rather be back in Brooklyn, but her dad had other plans) on an old airfield where her father is trying to make a success out of a craft brewery. She notices something in the sky near her home, something which may point back to a mystery from 1962. On a naval base in Indiana back then, when the Cuban Missile Crisis was making everyone tense, a physicist made an important and possibly dangerous discovery that may have caused ripples into the present day. What did he discover? What if any connection does it have to Maine, to Charlie or to the unexplained phone calls? And what is the threat facing the world?
Its hard to read the teasers about Departure 37 and not have your thoughts stray into Twilight Zone territory....no, not the episode with a creature on the wing, just the overall doo-doo-doo-doo vibe. It is part espionage thriller, part horror novel, and part coming-of-age story all rolled up into a suspenseful yarn. Shifting between two timelines, with the savvy and likable Charlie in the present day and physicist Martin back in the paranoid days of the early 1960's, the plot unfolds and keeps the reader guessing right up until the end. The characters are well-drawn and nuanced, the dueling timelines well integrated and the story keeps the reader on the edge of their seats. The opening is a doozy, and while I enjoyed the first half of the book more than the second it is still a solid and enjoyable read that offered plenty of elements to keep my interest, including Cold War paranoia and sinister government agents. Readers of Rob Hart, Paul Tremblay and of course the master himself Stephen King will likely find this of appeal. My thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books/Emily Bestler Books for allowing me access to this intriguing novel in exchange for my honest review.
All mothers worry about their children, it simply comes with the territory. But when the mothers of hundreds of commercial pilots call their children and beg them not to fly the following day, warning that if they don't heed the plea they will die, that's definitely beyond the norm. It also leaves US airspace empty on an October day, something not seen since 9/11. Weirder still? No mother remembers making the call...and some of the mothers were no longer alive to have made it. Meanwhile, 16 year old Charlie is living on the coast of Maine (not her choice, she's rather be back in Brooklyn, but her dad had other plans) on an old airfield where her father is trying to make a success out of a craft brewery. She notices something in the sky near her home, something which may point back to a mystery from 1962. On a naval base in Indiana back then, when the Cuban Missile Crisis was making everyone tense, a physicist made an important and possibly dangerous discovery that may have caused ripples into the present day. What did he discover? What if any connection does it have to Maine, to Charlie or to the unexplained phone calls? And what is the threat facing the world?
Its hard to read the teasers about Departure 37 and not have your thoughts stray into Twilight Zone territory....no, not the episode with a creature on the wing, just the overall doo-doo-doo-doo vibe. It is part espionage thriller, part horror novel, and part coming-of-age story all rolled up into a suspenseful yarn. Shifting between two timelines, with the savvy and likable Charlie in the present day and physicist Martin back in the paranoid days of the early 1960's, the plot unfolds and keeps the reader guessing right up until the end. The characters are well-drawn and nuanced, the dueling timelines well integrated and the story keeps the reader on the edge of their seats. The opening is a doozy, and while I enjoyed the first half of the book more than the second it is still a solid and enjoyable read that offered plenty of elements to keep my interest, including Cold War paranoia and sinister government agents. Readers of Rob Hart, Paul Tremblay and of course the master himself Stephen King will likely find this of appeal. My thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books/Emily Bestler Books for allowing me access to this intriguing novel in exchange for my honest review.