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Miranda Chase NTSB #5
Raider
The US Army’s brand-new S-97 Raider reconnaissance helicopter goes down during final acceptance testing — hard.
Cause: a failure, or the latest in a series of cyberattacks by Turkey.
Miranda Chase and her team of NTSB air-crash specialists tackle the challenge. They must find the flaw, save the Vice President, and stop the US being forced into the next war in the Middle East. And they have to do it now!
Cause: a failure, or the latest in a series of cyberattacks by Turkey.
Miranda Chase and her team of NTSB air-crash specialists tackle the challenge. They must find the flaw, save the Vice President, and stop the US being forced into the next war in the Middle East. And they have to do it now!
ebook
Published January 26, 2021
35 people are currently reading
31 people want to read
About the author
M.L. Buchman
322 books613 followersUSA Today and Amazon #1 Bestseller M. L. “Matt” Buchman started writing on a flight south from Japan to ride his bicycle across the Australian Outback. Just part of a solo around-the-world trip that ultimately launched his writing career.
From the very beginning, his powerful female heroines insisted on putting character first, then a great adventure. He’s since written over 60 action-adventure thrillers and military romantic suspense novels. And just for the fun of it: 100 short stories, and a fast-growing pile of read-by-author audiobooks.
Booklist says: 3x “Top 10 of the Year.” PW says: “Tom Clancy fans open to a strong female lead will clamor for more.” His fans say: “I want more now…of everything.” That his characters are even more insistent than his fans is a hoot.
As a 30-year project manager with a geophysics degree who has designed and built houses, flown and jumped out of planes, and solo-sailed a 50’ ketch, he is awed by what is possible. More at: www.mlbuchman.com.
From the very beginning, his powerful female heroines insisted on putting character first, then a great adventure. He’s since written over 60 action-adventure thrillers and military romantic suspense novels. And just for the fun of it: 100 short stories, and a fast-growing pile of read-by-author audiobooks.
Booklist says: 3x “Top 10 of the Year.” PW says: “Tom Clancy fans open to a strong female lead will clamor for more.” His fans say: “I want more now…of everything.” That his characters are even more insistent than his fans is a hoot.
As a 30-year project manager with a geophysics degree who has designed and built houses, flown and jumped out of planes, and solo-sailed a 50’ ketch, he is awed by what is possible. More at: www.mlbuchman.com.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
February 1, 2021
At the start of this one it seems like the team is running from one crash to another, not even keeping up. Along the way the an extra person shows up to help and it's surprising how good Andi fits in. She brings a different perspective, which ended up helping them out. By the time that Miranda and her crew figured things out they went with the adage, go big or go home, but it was just what was needed. Looks like Andi will be sticking around, which I think is a good thing.
January 30, 2021
Originally published at Reading Reality
There are several ways to approach Raider and the entire Miranda Chase series – and they all work because the series is just so damn good.
Miranda Chase is a savant when it comes to figuring out the cause of aircraft crashes, no matter how often the only way to solve the puzzle is to start from the old Sherlock Holmes aphorism that goes, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
So many of Miranda and her team’s solutions veer into the airspace of very improbable indeed, right up to the point where they prove, yet again, that improbability happens – and that they are the best team in the world at figuring it out.
And speaking of the team, another way of approaching this series is as a brilliant exercise in “competence porn”. Miranda and her team are the very best at what they do. Not just Miranda with her bone-deep desire to prevent the kind of crash that killed her parents, combined with the extreme focus on the task accompanied by a complete lack of ability to deal with social cues that is part of her autism spectrum disorder.
But it’s also about the team that she has gathered around her, because they are ALL the best at what they do, even if, as happens to both long-term team member and human factors specialist Mike and newcomer and helicopter specialist Andi, more than occasionally individual team members wonder what it is that they, personally are bringing to Miranda’s table.
Even the best of the best get slapped with impostor syndrome now and again.
Last but not least, for those who experience an occasional sense of nostalgia for the big, meaty, complicated spy games and government con games of the late Tom Clancy , the Miranda Chase series will definitely remind such readers of the internecine government warfare that was at the heart of so many of Clancy’s best – without the heft. (His later books did get kind of doorstoppy.)
Because this adventure, like ALL of Miranda’s adventures, combines plane crashes, government skullduggery, political one-upmanship (also one-upwomanship), brinkmanship that almost but not quite flies over that brink, with spy games and digital warfare on each and every side.
And it’s a thrill-a-minute ride every step of the way.
Escape Rating A: The Miranda Chase series just keeps getting better and better. I’m not the only reviewer saying it, but it bears repeating, so I’m repeating it. The series began in late 2019 with Drone and it has been just the perfect antidote to everything that went wrong in 2020. It features fascinating people solving convoluted problems with the occasional help and just as frequent stonewalling by a government that seems torn between getting shit done and turning on itself.
But competence and capability always triumph in this series, no matter what the odds or who is stacking them up.
This entry in the series ups the ante both in the solution to the series of crashes they are investigating and in their hair-raising escape from the results of that investigation – when it turns out they desperately need to escape a possibly hostile country with the Vice-President, the top-secret parts of Air Force Two, 60-something nuclear warheads and themselves intact while someone back in DC hacks that same country’s cyber warfare capability. It’s all in a day’s work – actually several almost totally sleepless days’ work – for Miranda and Co.
The other fascinating part of this entry in the series, in addition to the usual air crashes and spy games, is that the team has finally become a five-man band with the introduction of Captain Andrea (Andi) Wu, a helicopter pilot and not-fully-trained NTSB agent who was honorably discharged from the Night Stalkers with PTSD after her copilot took a grenade and saved her life and her helicopter. A helicopter that has just gone down in a mysterious crash.
Andi needs a purpose. Miranda and her team need an expert in all things helicopter, as well as someone who can speak fluent “soldier” when their investigation takes them to military bases, as it frequently does.
As this story winds its way from Denali to Groom Lake to Incirlik Air Base, Andi has to pull herself together, make a place for herself on the already tight-knit team, and help solve the puzzle of what happened to the experimental helicopter that she and her partner used to fly in a crash that shouldn’t have happened but absolutely did.
Raider is a spy story. And a military story. A puzzle-solving mystery. It’s Andi’s story. And especially and always it’s Miranda’s story – even if she never sees herself at the center of anything except an investigation.
This series is always exciting, nail-biting, and utterly marvelous. It can be read in any order but it’s especially wonderful if you start at the very beginning with Drone. Be prepared for Miranda and her team to take you on one wild ride after another.
Buckle up! Miranda Chase will be back in March in Chinook.
There are several ways to approach Raider and the entire Miranda Chase series – and they all work because the series is just so damn good.
Miranda Chase is a savant when it comes to figuring out the cause of aircraft crashes, no matter how often the only way to solve the puzzle is to start from the old Sherlock Holmes aphorism that goes, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
So many of Miranda and her team’s solutions veer into the airspace of very improbable indeed, right up to the point where they prove, yet again, that improbability happens – and that they are the best team in the world at figuring it out.
And speaking of the team, another way of approaching this series is as a brilliant exercise in “competence porn”. Miranda and her team are the very best at what they do. Not just Miranda with her bone-deep desire to prevent the kind of crash that killed her parents, combined with the extreme focus on the task accompanied by a complete lack of ability to deal with social cues that is part of her autism spectrum disorder.
But it’s also about the team that she has gathered around her, because they are ALL the best at what they do, even if, as happens to both long-term team member and human factors specialist Mike and newcomer and helicopter specialist Andi, more than occasionally individual team members wonder what it is that they, personally are bringing to Miranda’s table.
Even the best of the best get slapped with impostor syndrome now and again.
Last but not least, for those who experience an occasional sense of nostalgia for the big, meaty, complicated spy games and government con games of the late Tom Clancy , the Miranda Chase series will definitely remind such readers of the internecine government warfare that was at the heart of so many of Clancy’s best – without the heft. (His later books did get kind of doorstoppy.)
Because this adventure, like ALL of Miranda’s adventures, combines plane crashes, government skullduggery, political one-upmanship (also one-upwomanship), brinkmanship that almost but not quite flies over that brink, with spy games and digital warfare on each and every side.
And it’s a thrill-a-minute ride every step of the way.
Escape Rating A: The Miranda Chase series just keeps getting better and better. I’m not the only reviewer saying it, but it bears repeating, so I’m repeating it. The series began in late 2019 with Drone and it has been just the perfect antidote to everything that went wrong in 2020. It features fascinating people solving convoluted problems with the occasional help and just as frequent stonewalling by a government that seems torn between getting shit done and turning on itself.
But competence and capability always triumph in this series, no matter what the odds or who is stacking them up.
This entry in the series ups the ante both in the solution to the series of crashes they are investigating and in their hair-raising escape from the results of that investigation – when it turns out they desperately need to escape a possibly hostile country with the Vice-President, the top-secret parts of Air Force Two, 60-something nuclear warheads and themselves intact while someone back in DC hacks that same country’s cyber warfare capability. It’s all in a day’s work – actually several almost totally sleepless days’ work – for Miranda and Co.
The other fascinating part of this entry in the series, in addition to the usual air crashes and spy games, is that the team has finally become a five-man band with the introduction of Captain Andrea (Andi) Wu, a helicopter pilot and not-fully-trained NTSB agent who was honorably discharged from the Night Stalkers with PTSD after her copilot took a grenade and saved her life and her helicopter. A helicopter that has just gone down in a mysterious crash.
Andi needs a purpose. Miranda and her team need an expert in all things helicopter, as well as someone who can speak fluent “soldier” when their investigation takes them to military bases, as it frequently does.
As this story winds its way from Denali to Groom Lake to Incirlik Air Base, Andi has to pull herself together, make a place for herself on the already tight-knit team, and help solve the puzzle of what happened to the experimental helicopter that she and her partner used to fly in a crash that shouldn’t have happened but absolutely did.
Raider is a spy story. And a military story. A puzzle-solving mystery. It’s Andi’s story. And especially and always it’s Miranda’s story – even if she never sees herself at the center of anything except an investigation.
This series is always exciting, nail-biting, and utterly marvelous. It can be read in any order but it’s especially wonderful if you start at the very beginning with Drone. Be prepared for Miranda and her team to take you on one wild ride after another.
Buckle up! Miranda Chase will be back in March in Chinook.
January 27, 2021
I received an Advanced Reader Copy for an honest review.
Super Fan of all of ML Buchman's work - have every book he has written and can't wait to buy more. In fact last year I re-read every book again - they are that good.
In regards to Raider specifically - I didn't think the Miranda Chase series could get better - I have compared her to Emily Beale in the past - but this book just took my breath away. The situation is something that I imagine can happen and maybe is in the US - so it just makes the book so real. Love that she can call the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for anything and that she calls him, the VP and even the President by their first names. The addition of Andi, the night stalker pilot with PTSD - gives the characters and their "expertise" another dimension and perhaps other crashes - now rotorcraft - to investigate. I finished this last night and am going to re-read it again, starting this morning - that good. A+++++++++++++++
Super Fan of all of ML Buchman's work - have every book he has written and can't wait to buy more. In fact last year I re-read every book again - they are that good.
In regards to Raider specifically - I didn't think the Miranda Chase series could get better - I have compared her to Emily Beale in the past - but this book just took my breath away. The situation is something that I imagine can happen and maybe is in the US - so it just makes the book so real. Love that she can call the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for anything and that she calls him, the VP and even the President by their first names. The addition of Andi, the night stalker pilot with PTSD - gives the characters and their "expertise" another dimension and perhaps other crashes - now rotorcraft - to investigate. I finished this last night and am going to re-read it again, starting this morning - that good. A+++++++++++++++
January 26, 2021
The Miranda Chase series gets better and better. This book had more: more details in both the characters and the plot. We see even more of Miranda's interesting thought processes and how the past makes the team who they are.
This book introduces us to Capt Andi Wu, who has PTSD and thinks she is not the person she once was. We also get to see more of Mike's people skills. Add in a little hackery, and I had a totally satisfying read.
Again, I made the mistake of starting this book in the evening. Stayed up too late reading and thoroughly enjoyed the entire reading experience.
Read this one. Then return and read the first four books. You won't be glad you did. (If you're worried, do you need to read all 4 books first? No. This book stands alone. However, you might have an even richer reading experience if you do.)
I received an ARC of this title for an honest review.
This book introduces us to Capt Andi Wu, who has PTSD and thinks she is not the person she once was. We also get to see more of Mike's people skills. Add in a little hackery, and I had a totally satisfying read.
Again, I made the mistake of starting this book in the evening. Stayed up too late reading and thoroughly enjoyed the entire reading experience.
Read this one. Then return and read the first four books. You won't be glad you did. (If you're worried, do you need to read all 4 books first? No. This book stands alone. However, you might have an even richer reading experience if you do.)
I received an ARC of this title for an honest review.
January 26, 2021
I wish I didn't have to wait to read the next book in the series!
Buchman adds a great new character, Andi, to Miranda Chase's National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) team. Mike's character is revealed as he struggles with whether or not he is valuable to the team--all while the team tries to discover what is causing the latest series of crashes.
Not surprising for a fan of Miranda, I loved all the autism-inspired material: how Miranda takes everything at face value, how she goes down rabbit holes after something occurs to her, how she has difficulty focusing on phone calls because questions from the caller aren’t specific, etc.
Haven't read any of this series yet? Do yourself a favour and start with the first book. (You'll end up reading them all, I promise.) This is book 5 of 8 in the Miranda Chase series.
Buchman adds a great new character, Andi, to Miranda Chase's National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) team. Mike's character is revealed as he struggles with whether or not he is valuable to the team--all while the team tries to discover what is causing the latest series of crashes.
Not surprising for a fan of Miranda, I loved all the autism-inspired material: how Miranda takes everything at face value, how she goes down rabbit holes after something occurs to her, how she has difficulty focusing on phone calls because questions from the caller aren’t specific, etc.
Haven't read any of this series yet? Do yourself a favour and start with the first book. (You'll end up reading them all, I promise.) This is book 5 of 8 in the Miranda Chase series.
January 31, 2021
I was dubious about this series in the beginning, since the main character seemed unbelievable and without depth in the early novels, despite all the time spent on her character. And the technologies were jarringly too advanced for the timeline presented. But they have been gradually getting better and better. Raider pulled all the elements together: believable and entertaining plot, characters I wanted to root for, and tech that fit the world he described. Surprisingly, there was a minimum of the romance ML does so well, but I didn't miss it.
I received an ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review.
I received an ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review.
January 28, 2021
Miranda Chase and her team of NTSB air-crash specialists have faced a string of airplane crashes with puzzling results. But the very string has the clues. And when the Vice President is targeted, the stakes are raised to new heights...
Why I started this book: Fun to spend time with Miranda and her team... and I like the peak behind the curtain at all the technical issues in keeping planes and helicopters in the air.
Why I finished it: The action is quick paced and it's great to see more of the team dynamics.
Why I started this book: Fun to spend time with Miranda and her team... and I like the peak behind the curtain at all the technical issues in keeping planes and helicopters in the air.
Why I finished it: The action is quick paced and it's great to see more of the team dynamics.
February 1, 2021
DISRUPTION IN THE SKY
More complex, more convoluted than previous Miranda Chase NTSB stories have been. Three aircraft crashes, two of those fatal and all kinds of high-level players, makes for interesting, fast paced action and further developing relationships.
Raider presents lots more info into the mind of Miranda Chase, unraveling more of her dazzling mind. Yes, there is technical jargon, but it does not impede or overload the story. A could not put it down read. Definitely recommend.
More complex, more convoluted than previous Miranda Chase NTSB stories have been. Three aircraft crashes, two of those fatal and all kinds of high-level players, makes for interesting, fast paced action and further developing relationships.
Raider presents lots more info into the mind of Miranda Chase, unraveling more of her dazzling mind. Yes, there is technical jargon, but it does not impede or overload the story. A could not put it down read. Definitely recommend.
February 28, 2021
I really love this series, but I didn't love this book. While there were sections of intense action, there were also sections that bored me so much I fell asleep. :-( I think some of the less or non action scenes could have been shortened to speed things along more. The action scenes were more to my liking and more true to the Miranda Chase thrillers, I love. I would just tweak the other scenes or get rid of some of them all together.
January 20, 2021
Thank goodness that I received an ARC copy of Raider out of the blue. I was not expecting it. I will give an honest review.
I love an interesting and detailed story with good characters and good character interaction. When I get to the end of the books in this series I'm always sorry that the story ends. This book is no exception. This is a series that I can reread with pleasure.
I love an interesting and detailed story with good characters and good character interaction. When I get to the end of the books in this series I'm always sorry that the story ends. This book is no exception. This is a series that I can reread with pleasure.
February 5, 2021
I love the Miranda Chase series. I've read a few other of M. L. Buchman's books and none measure up to the enjoyment I get when I read the Miranda Chase novels. This particular book was as fun to read as the others, with no shortage of humor and a dash of suspense to make the book a great read. Keep up the good work, M. L. Buchman.
November 19, 2021
All Miranda Chase books are quirky, fun, amazing intelligence, caring individuals. Her team members are unique in their own ways. They all are a part of the whole.They have respect for each other as well as the respect of others. Miranda’s mind is so different being on the Autism spectrum, but they all understand each other.
January 20, 2021
I received an ARC of this title for an honest review.
Miranda Chasse is back! Same team plus a new addition.
Raider, might be about a military helicopter that crashed, but also about Mike realizing his place in the team. I loved it!
Miranda Chasse is back! Same team plus a new addition.
Raider, might be about a military helicopter that crashed, but also about Mike realizing his place in the team. I loved it!
January 23, 2021
I received an ARC of this title for an honest review. Always a great read. The details in the aircrafts are amazing and the storyline grips you. It makes you want to find out more about Miranda and her crew and how they solve aircraft crashes.
January 26, 2021
I received an arc copy for an honest review.
I love Miranda Chase and this new book with its techno thriller aspects combined with a little bit of romance and reflections on the autism spectrum was exactly my cup of tea.
I love Miranda Chase and this new book with its techno thriller aspects combined with a little bit of romance and reflections on the autism spectrum was exactly my cup of tea.
January 29, 2021
A new character joins Miranda Chase
The Miranda Chase books are intriguing, multi-layered and usually have an unexpected plot twist. This time a new character is added to the team from the Night Stalkers. I’m absolutely ready for the next book to be published.
The Miranda Chase books are intriguing, multi-layered and usually have an unexpected plot twist. This time a new character is added to the team from the Night Stalkers. I’m absolutely ready for the next book to be published.
February 1, 2021
Love all of his books. I stayed up half the night to read this book, but I could not put it down. Great reading about the NTSB team and Miranda. So much detail plus so many twists and turns. TOTALLY RECOMMEND this series, and any of his other Books.
January 23, 2021
4.5 stars
Exciting, thrilling, and chilling! All the elements that remind me why I enjoy this author's stories so much. Full review to follow.
Exciting, thrilling, and chilling! All the elements that remind me why I enjoy this author's stories so much. Full review to follow.
January 30, 2021
The best yet. Ian now going to go back to the beginning of the series and read it again.
January 30, 2021
Another excellent and entertaining book!
February 1, 2021
Nice balance of suspense and character growth. Thank you for not spending too much time in the villains heads!! Really liked the new character, Andi.
January 9, 2024
Good story, solid characters, just a little too much techno geek stuff for me to give it 4 stars. Tom Clancy fans would probably like this.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews