Air Bridge
Hammond Innes - Air Bridge
Neil Freyser, a WWII bomber pilot and aircraft engineer fallen on hard times, has resorted to smuggling to make a living and now he is pursued by the police. When he stumbles upon a lone aircraft hangar, its owner Saeton blackmails him to join his foolhardy scheme to build a new aircraft engines based on wartime designs he has smuggled into Britain. They and their few allies have to build the engines by hand to be able to get a contract in the Berlin Airlift. And Saeton is ready to resort to more than couple of shady deals to get what he wants - and Freyser has little choice but to try to obey him.
In many of the Innes' stories the main "antagonist" is nature. However, in this book it's the obsession of a single man who thinks that the secret of his precious engines is more important than human life. He is capable of blackmail, deceit, theft and worse to get what he wants.
To me the ending leaves something to be desired, but as a whole the tension of the story is almost unbearable, when the Soviets turn out the less of a threat than one obsessive man easier to believe than Freyser.
Neil Freyser, a WWII bomber pilot and aircraft engineer fallen on hard times, has resorted to smuggling to make a living and now he is pursued by the police. When he stumbles upon a lone aircraft hangar, its owner Saeton blackmails him to join his foolhardy scheme to build a new aircraft engines based on wartime designs he has smuggled into Britain. They and their few allies have to build the engines by hand to be able to get a contract in the Berlin Airlift. And Saeton is ready to resort to more than couple of shady deals to get what he wants - and Freyser has little choice but to try to obey him.
In many of the Innes' stories the main "antagonist" is nature. However, in this book it's the obsession of a single man who thinks that the secret of his precious engines is more important than human life. He is capable of blackmail, deceit, theft and worse to get what he wants.
To me the ending leaves something to be desired, but as a whole the tension of the story is almost unbearable, when the Soviets turn out the less of a threat than one obsessive man easier to believe than Freyser.