The biowarfare people call the bug a Level 4 pathogen. That means no cure. No hope. No survivors. Now it's loose on Quantum Flight 66. One passenger is already dead. The experts say in 48 hours the rest may follow. James Holland, former U.S. fighter pilot, now flying this commercial Boeing 747, isn't ready to die. They say he can't land his plane. They say he's a threat to the whole world. They're ready to blast him out of the sky. Captain Holland may be on a collision course with doom-but they're going to have to catch him first. He's determined to take whatever risks he must to outfly them. Outsmart them. And beat...Pandora's Clock.

Pandora's Clock

NANCE, JOHN J.

Literature & Fiction

St. Martin's Paperbacks

He took you on a collision course with disaster in Pandora's Clock In the high-flying tradition of his extraordinary New York Times bestseller Pandora's Clock, author and aviator John J. Nance launches Medusa's Child, an explosive new thriller that takes to the skies-and takes you to the height of terror. Now he brings you to the brink of nuclear catastrophe At 10,000 feet, Captain Scott McKay gets the nerve-shattering news: aboard his Boeing 727 is a ticking time bomb-and not just any bomb. It's the Medusa Project, a thermonuclear monster that could wipe out every computer chip on the continent, obliterating any and all traces of modern technology. Now Scott is flying blind, with nowhere to land and nothing to rely on but his own instincts. And one wrong move could ignite a worldwide apocalypse by unleashing...

Medusa's Child

Contemporary

St.Martin's

A demented hijacker... A master of aviation suspense, author John J. Nance thrilled the country with his explosive bestsellers, Pandora's Clock and Medusa's Child. Now, as only he can do, Nance soars with a gripping new novel about one man in the air and on the brink, and the one woman who can bring him-and a plane full of passengers-down safely... Or a victim of injustice? Fugitive pilot Ken Wolfe holds a 737 hostage high above the Rocky Mountains. As the lives of his passengers hang in the balance, Wolfe demands the apprehension and indictment of an unprosecuted killer-within twenty-four hours. Rookie FBI agent Kat Bronsky must tend to his fragile psyche while talking the pilot down and into the hands of the law. But as Wolfe's motives unfold, Kat begins to question who is actually the villain and who is the victim-and time continues to run out on a plane headed for disaster... Sooner or later, the truth must land.

The Last Hostage

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Thrillers & Suspense

Headwind

Pan Books

On the heels of T. A. Weppenheimer's The Coming Quake (Nonfiction Forecasts, Aug. 5) appears this excellent study by the author of Blind Trust , in part historical and in part admonitory. Nance goes into detail on the Alaskan quake of 1964, the last major seismic disaster in North America, and also furnishes information on the Mississippi Valley quake of 1811 and the one in Chile in 1960, showing how great the damage can be. He treats the history of seismology and its exponential growth in our century, alluding to two contemporary temblors that were predicted: Haicheng, China, in 1975 and Oaxaca, Mexico, in 1978. But while demonstrating that seismology is becoming an exact science, he also points out that the public is often deaf to the warnings of experts, citing the examples of Mammoth Lakes, Calif., and Anchorage, Alaska, where people have rebuilt on ground that has proved to be unsafe. With 39 states of the U.S. declared "significant seismic hazard zones," Nance outlines ways to minimize disaster; his message merits wide attention. Photos not seen by PW. Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

On Shaky Ground: America's Earthquake Alert

Science & Math

Earth Sciences

Avon/Books

There is no antidote for terror Captain James Holland is the pilot on a routine flight from Frankfurt to New York, packed with people eager to be home for Christmas. When a passenger collapses from what appears to be a heart attack, Holland is forced to request an emergency landing at London's Heathrow Airport. But to his great surprise, the air traffic controllers will not let him land in England -- they tell Holland that his sick passenger has contracted a dangerous new form of influenza and that the plane must return to Germany. But when German officials also refuse the landing, and other European countries follow suit, Holland begins to suspect that he's in much more trouble than anyone's letting on. In fact, his sick passenger is carrying a deadly virus accidentally released from a Bavarian laboratory, and it is feared that everyone on board is now infected. At the same time, someone with access to the CIA's computers wants to shoot the plane out of the sky, and there is a United States ambassador on board with powerful terrorist enemies who want to see him dead. While the panic on the ground spreads from the White House Situation Room to a small airport in the Ukrainian Republic, Captain Holland has only one concern: Where and when can he land? Pandora's Clock -- the most gripping, heart-stopping read of the year.

United States

DOUBLEDAY

Everything in America is about to stop... 10,000 feet over Washington, D.C.! With the same breathtaking heroics that brought his bestselling Pandora's Clock international acclaim, John J. Nance once again spins today's headlines--this time about the threat of nuclear terrorism--into an all-too-realistic story of high-flying suspense. For thirty-year-old captain Scott McKay, the transport run from Miami to Denver will give him the money he desperately needs to keep his fledgling air cargo company flying. When a mysterious crate is discovered on his plane, however, McKay is ordered to abandon his present course and fly the crate and its owner, Vivian Henry, to Washington, D.C., before going to Denver. McKay takes the forced detour in stride--until a strange noise comes from deep inside the crate. It is the voice of Vivian's husband, Dr. Rogers Henry, warning that the shipment they are carrying is actually a fully armed Medusa device, a thermonuclear bomb that can destroy every computer chip over an entire continent, and blast the Silicon Age back to the Stone Age. And it is set to go off within hours. As panic spreads from the small community of nuclear scientists who used to work for Dr. Rogers Henry to the White House and eventually to the general public, a group of rogue military officers conspires to disobey the President's orders and secure the technology of the Medusa device, whatever the cost. Will Captain McKay and his crew trust their own instincts to dispose of the bomb, or will they let a misguided government dictate their actions? Using his inside knowledge of the airline industry, as well as his expertise as a pilot, John J. Nance has once again turned our worst fears into a terrifyingly realistic story. Medusa's Child will take readers into the center of a spine-tingling crisis.

Be prepared to be held hostage to the nail-biting suspense of a world-class thriller. High above the Rocky Mountains, a routine airline flight becomes a midair standoff as 130 passengers listen to their captain relate the unprecedented demands of an unseen hijacker. Federal and state officials must hunt down, arrest, and indict the murderer of a young girl, and do it all in eight hours--or the airplane will be blown out of the sky. With the airline in confusion, the media pursuing, and the hijacker forcing the aircraft into wild maneuvers as they head toward Salt Lake City, the FBI reluctantly fields its closest hostage negotiator, a rookie female agent and psychologist named Katherine Bronsky. Immediately, Bronsky finds herself sucked into the vortex of an impossible war of wills between a volatile, unstable hijacker holding the trigger to a bomb and stonewalling Justice Department officials who have no real intention of meeting the lone gunman's demands. When the hijacker suddenly refuses to land at Salt Lake City, Kat commandeers a business jet and races after the low-flying 737. As the jetliner runs low on fuel, she's stunned to discover that the man with the gun is none other than the murdered girl's father, and that one of his hostages is a front-runner to become the new Attorney General of the United States. Successful at last in getting him to land in a remote Colorado airport, Bronsky's brave and desperate attempts to reason with the hijacker backfire, and she becomes a hostage herself. Now discounted and ignored by her superiors in Washington for losing control, Bronsky's only hope to save the passengers and crew of AirBridge Flight 90 is to solve the wrenching mystery of who killed an eleven-year-old girl in a dark Connecticut forest two years before. And for that, all she has is an airborne phone and precious few hours before the bomb detonates. Nance ratchets up the tension with expertly crafted twists and turns that converge into an unforgettably wrenching dilemma. But one thing finally becomes clear. The only person who can safely land AirBridge Flight 90 and save its 130 passengers is dangerously close to death. And if the clock runs out, The Last Hostage will never see the light of day.

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

In the wake of what looks like the terrorist bombing of an airplane, FBI agent Kat Bronsky investigates reports of a "Global Express" plane sighted on the runway near the target jetliner before takeoff. By the author of Pandora's Clock. 75,000 first printing.

Blackout: A Novel

Short Stories & Anthologies

Putnam Adult

A fiesty ex-president, John Harris flees potential arrest with the help of a daring airline pilot, in this suspenseful tale of international politics and conspiracy by the author of Blackout. 75,000 first printing.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by NANCE, JOHN J.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by NANCE, JOHN J.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by NANCE, JOHN J.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Pandora's Clock

Medusa's Child

The Last Hostage

Headwind

On Shaky Ground: America's Earthquake Alert

Pandora's Clock

Medusa's Child

The Last Hostage

Blackout: A Novel

Headwind