Not his best...nor his worst...

Just finished up Michael Crichton's Airframe - a novel about a woman's chase to find out what happened in a deadly air incident on a plane that her company built.

Honestly, it's pretty typical Crichton. If you like most of the rest of his books, you'll probably like this one, as well. It had a fairly tight plot with the dangers and twists - union troubles, internal company espionage, circling media - coming closer and closer, boxing her into a corner as the story moved along. It was a little slow to build, as the details of the airplane industry took some slogging to get through and the character took a while to engender much sympathy from me. She's not a horrible person, just a little - as one critic mentions - wooden at times. By the time all of the nooses had been tightened, the story did turn out to be pretty gripping, and I found myself wanting to listen to the tapes just a little while longer to get to the end.

My biggest gripe is that the eventual revelations didn't seem to be in the least predictable. In a good suspense story, I like to know that there were clues along the way that might have let me know what was coming. (Fight Club - both book and movie - did a great job of that.) I this novel, however, Crichton kept all of his cards a little close to the vest for my liking. I'd have liked a little more to have been revealed instead of having the lead character look at something and comment "That was when it all fell together" without giving us even a glimpse into what she'd just seen.

It's not bad, it's not great. Good, fluff read...

If you're gonna pick a Crichton instead, might I recommend Prey - but do stay away from Timeline