Dying Day

British private eye Ron Hogget returns ( Dead Ernest ) in this overly complex tale of his search for a 40-year-old WW II airplane . A Douglas DC 3, known as a Dakota, was used after the war by RAF pilot Tony Palliser and three other pilot-partners to get their fledgling airline company off the ground. Now a wealthy man, Palliser says he's funding the search for the Dak to oblige the granddaughter of one of the other pilots, missing, like the plane, since the Berlin Airlift. But Hoggett believes money is behind Palliser's interesta lot of money, judging from the steady accretion of dead bodies and attempts on his own life. Accompanied by his friend and bodyguard Dave, Hogget dives for the wreck on the sea floor near a Hebridean Island; he finds it, complete with four skeletons and a treasure trove of jewelry and gold. Complications and coincidences confuse Hoggett's unraveling of Palliser's motive, the identities of those who died in the plane, the sourceand appropriate dispositionof the treasure. While lightened by a breezy tone and the not-so-sub plot of Hogget's latest love affair, the mystery remains earthbound. (Jan.)