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Summary
Summary
From the bestselling author of The Ransom of Black Stealth One
Dean Ing returns to his fascination with experimental aircraft, but this time instead of the big jets of The Ransom of Black Stealth One , this one is about smaller, more insidious flying machines.
Rob Tarrant is a genius at designing flying things, and his work for General Standards Corporation has yielded more than one patent for the aviation giant. But Tarrant's hobby is building miniature UAVs - Unmanned Arial Vehicles, tiny remote controlled drones. They could be toys, but Tarrant's latest version is so small, and so stable, that he thinks he might be able to mount other miniaturized technology on board: chemical analyzers, or listening devices.
Being a good company man, Tarrant plans to give his little flying machine design to General Standards. But from the moment he describes the project to his boss, his life becomes a living hell - for Tarrant has succeeded in building a device that has been the subject of a dozen top secret research projects. And everyone wants to stop him before he shows his new toys to the whole world.
Author Notes
Dean Ing has worked as a USAF interceptor crew chief, a senior research engineer in the aerospace industry, a builder and driver of sports-racing cars, and a university professor. He has a doctorate in communications theory. Ing is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Ransom of Black Stealth One, The Nemesis Mission, and The Skins of Dead Men. He lives in Ashland, Oregon.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Ing takes direct aim at the reader's sense of humorÄconnecting more often than notÄin this lighthearted thriller about a Silicon Valley engineer forced into hiding after one of his inventions attracts the interest of the wrong people. Rob Tarrant, a mild-mannered career man at enormous General Standards Corp., has high hopes for his miniature, remote-controlled flying machine, which can hover high above the ground, taking pictures or chemically sensing any number of things too small for the eye or nose to detectÄeven pollution levels or pest infestation in crops. Tarrant expects praise and a promotion when he takes his so-called Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) to his boss, the smooth-talking Ethan Lodge. And indeed, Tarrant's life does change instantly, but not for the better. Bewilderingly, he goes from being a faceless Silicon Valley drone to one of the most wanted men in the country, chased by, among others, U.S. and Israeli intelligence agents. After the first attempt on his life, the resourceful Tarrant goes to ground, employing various schemes and disguises to survive. Relying on wacky friends and family to elude his clumsy pursuers, he spends the bulk of his time trying to figure out why everyone is so riled about his seemingly innocuous UAV. Ing (The Nemesis Mission; The Skins of Dead Men), himself a longtime engineer and tinkerer, finds great sport in poking fun at lots of targetsÄSilicon Valley's self-importance, corporate arrogance, engineering nerdiness and government bumbling. The thriller as farce is only one of Ing's modesÄhe also writes sci-fi-inflected suspense novels and more serious techno-thrillersÄbut it is his best. The witty repartee and situational humor of his latest amusement are strained at times, but Ing continues to mine a profitable side vein in a field crowded with the claims of more conventional thriller writers. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
A Grade-B thriller in which Everyman is a wanted man--and in several countries. Up till now, 36-year-old Rob Tarrant has led a blameless life: law-abiding citizen, loving father, faithful husband, hard-working aerospace engineer for multinational General Standards, and harmless hobbyist. It's this last that leads him down the garden path, but how could he have foreseen that the miniature UAV produced in his basement workshop would make him persona non grata in so many places? UAV: Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. The one Rob designs is only a couple of inches long, and when he brings it to the attention of Ethan Lodge it's because he vaguely hopes it will result in some form of modest career advancement. But Lodge, a GenStand marketing director, is exactly the wrong man to confide in. True, he's by way of being a friend--or so Rob thinks--but the seemingly well-disposed Lodge is in fact a Lodge full of secret agendas. For one thing, he's been on the take for years. Complicating that is the matter of whom and what he was taking from: a powerful foreign government passionately interested in how a tiny UAV might augment spook efficiency. It's at this point (though for reasons not always easy to follow) that Everyman becomes everybody's target. Nor is he comfortable reaching out to home-grown law enforcement because--call him paranoid--he's convinced they're all double-dealing. And it's certainly true, for instance, that the handsome Defense Department Intelligence hotshot David Sachs has been climbing into bed with Rob's wife. Nonetheless, beleaguered Rob is Rob resourceful, and with the help of good friends, and a good woman, Everyman overcomes everywhichway. Ing's light touch (The Skins of Dead Men, 1998, etc.) fails him here: the story's far-fetched, the characters slight, the comedy forced. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Man-on-the-run thrillers are a dime a dozen, but fresh ones are substantially rarer. Readers looking for something new will be happy to crack the covers of Ing's latest offering. Rob Tarrant works for General Standards Corporation, a high-tech company, but his hobby is building tiny unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). When he combines his work and his hobby by inventing a miniature flying machine only a few inches long, he is startled to find that someone suddenly seems to be trying to kill him. Is it his employer or a government agent? And, if the latter, whose government? Featuring well-drawn characters and reasonably sharp dialogue (Ing avoids most of the cliches of the genre), the novel reenergizes the on-the-run theme without straying too far from the familiar conventions. Experienced readers may see the conclusion coming a tad earlier than Ing would like, but getting there is still a lot of fun. --David Pitt