Doug Ross @ Journal

Book Review: Nelson DeMille's Nightfall

You need not be a conspiracy theorist to enjoy DeMille's latest

DeMille resumes his entertaining John Corey series with Nightfall . Corey, the ex-NYPD detective, is now working on an FBI anti-terror taskforce as a contract employee. In the summer of 2001, he and his wife Kate attend a memorial service honoring the fifth anniversary of TWA Flight 800, which ended minutes after takeoff in a catastrophic explosion that took all 230 lives aboard.

Despite hundreds of eyewitness accounts that stated something resembling a surface-to-air rocket had touched off the explosion, hundreds of FBI agents, NTSB personnel, and other governmental parties came to the conclusion that an internal spark had triggered an explosion in the central fuel tank. Having investigated the original incident, Corey's FBI agent wife is fed up with the apparent stonewalling and clues her husband onto an interesting, and not widely known, fact regarding the investigation.

A couple was apparently videotaping themselves during a risque frolic in the surf when the explosion occurred. Some investigators believe that their videotape captured the crucial events. One problem: the couple disappeared, most likely because they were adulterers, and there's no way to identify the pair other than a lens cap left on a beach blanket.

Corey doggedly pursues the investigation in an entirely unofficial manner and is quickly confronted with resistance from his administrators. Some top-level officials don't want him turning over any rocks and unearthing more details. And they're willing to take extreme measures to make sure he doesn't pursue the investigation.

As other reviewers have noted, the plot lags towards the middle of the book. But few other authors have mastered sarcastic, entertaining patter in quite the way DeMille has (although Raymond Chandler comes to mind). When Corey arranges to meet an old partner at a Chinese restaurant, he describes the scene:

"They were prepping the day's mystery dishes in the kitchen, and I thought I heard a cat, a dog, and a duck, followed by chopping sounds, then silence. Smelled good, though."

Despite a sluggish plot here and there, Corey is a consistently entertaining character and the mystery of Flight 800 is compelling. In fact, I suspect every person who reads this book will be googling the topic upon finishing the book.