Resumo de Airframe - Michael Crichton

Introduction
One thing that keeps attracting me to Michael Crichton's novels are his plots which usually are innovative. So everytime I get a chance to pick up one of his novels, I do so. So I found myself flying through Air Frame.

The Plot
Casey Singleton is a QA at Norton Aircraft Company. One of the planes manufactured by Norton has witnessed a midair disaster which has left three passengers dead and fifty six injured. The timing of the same is perfectly timed with an impending deal with China which would give the company the financial lifeline to survive in this high cost industry. Hence, Casey is asked to head an investigation to come up with answers so as to make sure that the China deal goes through.

Within hours of taking over the investigation, Casey finds that she has just opened a can of worms with no leads and lot of rumours floating around. On the one hand, there seem to be labour problems on rumours that the company is outsourcing construction work to either China or Korea. The labourers are willing to go to any extent to sabotage any such intention of the company. On the other hand, the experts seem to suggest that there is nothing wrong in the plane.

The evidence that Casey has in her hands though point to an issue that had cropped earlier with Norton Aircraft and which they thought was fixed. If things were not bad enough, the media gets a disturbing tape of what happened inside the Norton Aircraft during the mid air disaster and this gets the news hounds baying for blood. Also there seems to be corporate in-fighting going on between the top two men in the company, President Hal Anderton and his Chief Operating Officer John Marder.

So what is the mystery that caused the mid air disaster? Is Casey able to solve the mystery and the other problems with labour, media and corporate in-fighting? Check out this offering from Michael Crichton for all the details.

Critic's Viewpoint
I have always loved the plots that Michael Crichton conjures up and he definitely did not disappoint me here. Michael shows amazing variety when he comes up with these plotlines covering a variety of topics. The key is that his stories usually seem to have more research than most other authors, so even his average stories are better than the average stories of most other authors.

Coming to Airframe, the research is evident and we get a novel replete with terminology from the Airlines industry and full of technical jargon. In fact, at times it seems to be a bit overdone. But, more than the airlines industry it is a story of Corporate politics and media meddling. The plot has been handled well and the story goes at a decent pace once Casey starts her investigation. Now, I have been one of the strongest critic's of Michael Crichton's presentation of the interesting ideas he has.

Air frame is one of his better novels in terms of presentation. In fact, I liked the ending and found it to be quite good actually. Also except for a small portion in the middle the novel moves along with hardly a dull page in between. Through Airframe, Crichton also tries to raise a few interesting questions like the role of media and the demerits of Outsourcing. The role of media is brought under scrutiny in this novel and the question of ethics in the manner of sensationalising of inaccurate facts has been raised by Crichton here.

Again, in terms of Outsourcing, he tries to raise the issue of the effect on labor due to Outsourcing. But, he stops with raising these issues and does not go about providing a solution or an idea of how to solve the problem.

Summary
All in all a nice read and another interesting offering from the stable of Crichton.I would give this novel a 4 star rating.

Statutory Warning: Don't read this novel on a flight journey, else you would feel very uncomfortable.

About the Author
Michael Crichton was born in Chicago, in 1942. His novels include such popular offerings like The Andromeda Strain, The Great Train Robbery, Congo and Jurassic Park. He is also the creator of the popular TV series ER. His latest offering in the world of novel is State of Fear.

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