cover image Stolen Thunder

Stolen Thunder

David Axton. St. Martin's Press, $21.95 (370pp) ISBN 978-0-312-09395-2

A mothballed B-52 bomber designated for museum duty and the skills of six former Air Force hotshots are revived in this well-paced if somewhat simplistic aviation thriller about a rogue bombing run aimed at a Libyan terrorist and his training camp. Tariq Talal has enraged governments around the world with his campaign of hijacking and random murder, including the brutal execution of American Air Force Captain Edward Masterson, a passenger on one of the pirated flights. Unknown even to the U.S. president, a crew of renegade ex-Air Force pilots plot revenge. The team includes Masterson's widow, Lear jet commuter pilot and former RAF navigator Tamasin Penhale Masterson, and his father, Air Force general Virgil ``Bat'' Masterson. They steal a retired B-52 from a sleepy Arizona air base, arm, fuel and pilot it toward Libya. Investigating the swiped B-52, Air Force intelligence captain Rebecca ``Becks'' Laird narrows the list of suspects and races to avoid what she thinks might be the start of World War III. A British novelist writing under a pseudonym, Axton does best when he keeps the action in the air. Laird figures out who's on board much too quickly to be believed, but the crisp prose and gung-ho characters make this a diverting read. (May)