Airframe

A Novel

By: Michael Crichton

Narrated by: Frances Cassidy

Three passengers are dead. Fifty-six are injured. The interior cabin virtually destroyed. But the pilot manages to land the plane. . . .

At a moment when the issue of safety and death in the skies is paramount in the public mind, a lethal midair disaster aboard a commercial twin-jet airliner bound from Hong Kong to Denver triggers a pressured and frantic investigation.

AIRFRAME is nonstop reading: the extraordinary mixture of super suspense and authentic information on a subject of compelling interest that has been a Crichton landmark since The Andromeda Strain.©1996 by Michael Crichton; (P)1996 by Random House, Inc.

A Good Listen & a Solid Story

I listened to this book right after listening to Timeline. At first I thought that the pace of this book might be a disappointment, but as the characters developed I became more involved and eventually found myself really wanting to know what was going to happen next.

The story is very believable with lots of relevant historical references to air transportation events. The protagonist, a women, faces not only the challenges of finding the cause of a mysterious air disaster, dealing with an unrelenting press, and avoiding being set up as a fall guy, but also the stigma of being a women in a male dominated engineering environment.

The ending is clever and will catch you by surprise if you do not listen carefully. There are lots of insights into air travel safety. If you like your pace more like that of a mystery novel, with lots of technical background, you will like this book.

Kept me interested... though somewhat unbelievable

I have mixed feelings on this book. On the one hand, I found it very interesting (being an engineer, I enjoyed the technical details). Much of the book seemed very factual, including a behind the scenes look at the making of weekly "news shows".

On the other hand, I guessed at the ending early on... this didn't bother me too much since I had to keep listening to see if I was right. What I most disliked was the unbelievable (at least to me)underlying conspiracy story (including murder attempts).

Narration is absolutely the best

Well written story. The profanity could have been toned down a little bit. Frances Cassity is marvelous as a narrator. She does a voice for each charactor and when she reads the logs you can see it happening. She has a wonderful voice and is able to do so much with her voice. I can actually see the charactors talking and arguing in this book.

Story was a little slow, but still good

the story was hard to get fully engaged, I put it down a couple of times and started again later. I love Crichton, and this one was good, but not his best.

The Adventure You Would Expect from Crichton

I chose this audiobook largely because I have enjoyed Chrichton's other thrillers, especially Disclosure. As usual, I missed obvious clues and was left wondering how I missed them. Recently on the news, there was a story about an airplane engine that caught fire. My mind flashed back to this book and what it had taught me about airplanes, and I found myself talking about the book and how different parts of the plane are not always made by the same companies as the airframes. Phenomenal learning blended into a great storyline.