Deception Plan

by Patrick A. Davis

WHEN A U-2 SPY PLANE GOES DOWN IN A FIERY HEAP, THE PILOT'S DEATH IS A TRAGEDY -- BUT IT'S NO ACCIDENT.U.S. Colonel Ed Coffin is sent to South Korea, the land of his birth, to lead the most important and grim investigation of his career: a secret U-2 spy plane has crashed under highly suspicious circumstances. A former U-2 squadron commander, Coffin is teamed up with his former lover, the irrepressible OSI investigator Marva Mother Hubbard, and together they learn that the plane's pilot was specifically targeted for death -- but why? Navigating a geopolitical web strewn with murder, ambition, and betrayal, Coffin is soon embroiled in a desperate race for survival. But Coffin is also on another, more personal mission -- and one way or the other, it may be his last.

Genres: Thriller, Mystery

416 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Patrick A. Davis is the national and New York Times bestselling author of six previous novels: The Commander, A Slow Walk to Hell, A Long Day for Dying, The Colonel, The General, and The Passenger. He is a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy and the Army Command and General Staff College, and a former Air Force major who flew during the Gulf War. He helped plan and direct U-2 surveillance operations for Operation Desert Storm and flew eleven combat sorties. He is a former pilot with a major airline.

Reviews

[Daniel Farkas (Inactive) · Rating 5 out of 5]

"If you were given a choice between a long empty life and dying alone, or living a single year with someone you love and surrounded by friends, what would you choose?"

[Kurt Young · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reads easily enough, but not really worth even the minimal effort. The author seems to have gotten extra credit in a creative writing class for foreshadowing, and has never let up. Ham-handed military "thriller." Skip it.

[Logan Weatherly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really didn't like this one as much as previous Davis book I've read. It took me an extremely long time to get into the story. Decent ending but predictable. Still, not a bad read.

[Lou Williamson · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a good story, but I don't like how it was written.

[Christopher Rushlau · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was afraid when I began this book, after reading his "Commander," "A Slow Walk to Hell," and "Colonel", in that order, that this book, copyright 2006, would see him become a Global War On Terror vampire, bellowing for blood, as seemed to happen to Dean Koontz. But instead the book is a very delicate and powerful analysis of South Korea. A character says "The US and South Korea rise and fall together", which leaves you to decide, as you must, if that's because both are on the side of good or both are on the side of, let us call it, corruption.
It is the last book he's published, here ten years later, but his website says that he has come out of "a long illness" and "is writing again!" A saying in the military, "It doesn't take much to pull a trigger," sums up the mind of an honorable soldier. You can't recall the bullet. So you'd better be sure before doing that little squeeze.
Like all his books, it's a book about racism under the Constitution. Racism is the substitution of a comic-book caricature for one's understanding of events. That substitution makes it easy to sign up for, become an addict to, the party line. The hero of his books, the citizen, fights that undertow, that downdraft (speaking as a non-swimmer and non-pilot), as it pops up again and again in the investigation of the murder.
Why does there always have to be a murder? In a nation forged in slavery and tempered in genocide, we have no dearth of telltale hearts beating away under the floorboards, now more than ever when every assassination, I should say, every lynching, brings top ratings and cries of "more! more!". I'd thought Mr. Davis had retired out of despair, and perhaps that was part of his illness. And perhaps he has now discovered, in the words of Andy Warhol I discovered the other day, "Times don't change unless someone changes them."
Democracy, as the rule of law, may come down to a certain attitude toward the use of force. It is only justified when someone's use of politics is being interfered with. That is, when someone's status as a citizen is being impeded. You must bust that person loose. But the question will be, "Are you sure that's what is happening?", but I think the real sticker is that you and I see plenty of occasions where that is what is happening, but that another question, "Will you defy the lynch mob?" actually is what stops us.
Come to think of it, this book has a collegiality, a rallying of honorable comrades, that I didn't find in the other three books of his I read, which instead had separate but serious challenges for each member of the investigative team, which was a smaller team, too. In that way it's a good book, the best way to meet the literary challenge of the Global War On Terror and its constant refrain of "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" or wherever the target is today. Whomever the next Hitler is who must be taken out. You get sick of that lynch mentality after a while, lose your faith in the next guy you meet, which you can never do. You must always give the next guy the benefit of the doubt. Having a story where the whole crowd more or less rallies around the flag to oust the corrupt from their false leadership roles: that's just what the doctor ordered!

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Colonel Ed Collins, born in South Korea, returns to conduct an investigation of the crash of a secret U-2 spy plane.

In Korea he meets up with not only the criminal elements, but also an important part of his past.

[Mason · Rating 5 out of 5]

He gets better with every book. I like the AF angle to his books. I hope he keeps writing. This was a great read.