Departure 37 by Scott Carson

 Captivating premise isn’t enough to make this Cold War mystery thriller a standout for me.

The calls come in the middle of the night, ostensibly from the moms of pilots meant to fly the next day. The message is clear and results in a callout that empties the skies. 

That’s a pretty exciting opening and honestly, that whole concept would have been enough to get me really going, but the whole Seeker Script plot line just fizzled. Then the dual timeline starts and we are alternating between a brilliant physicist, Dr. Martin Hazelton, doing experiments in 1962 and then to present day when two teenagers left alone in Ash Point, Maine, can’t escape their little peninsula when electricity and internet go off when the airline shutdown occurs. Just so happens they are close to a supposedly inactive airfield owned and maintained by the US Navy. And then a B-62 bomber appears out of the sky and lands. Charlie and Lawrence, both 16, learn about secrets and bizarre aviation events from the Cold War. 

I can suspend disbelief about lots of scientific things in a heartbeat, but what I just could not wrap my brain around was the inclusion of these two teenagers and them having such a huge impact on what happens in the story. Seriously? If I want my heroes and main characters to be that age, I’ll read young adult literature. It ruined the book for me honestly. I’m sure I’m an outlier, and that’s fine, because it would have made a better and more realistic climax and ending if it wasn’t for that “perceptive” teen girl and her tagalong. Maybe I’m not the right audience but I do like science fiction and the whole concept of being able to disappear a plane and then call it back was quite interesting. All of the characters felt incomplete and at times the flip between past and present was disorienting. There were other issues I might expand upon as well too explain why this book didn’t really work as well for me as I had anticipated, but that would be spoilers.

I was able to listen to the audio book while also following along in the e-book ARC provided by the publisher. The narrators, Mia Barron, Catherine Ho, and Johnny Heller, were a mixed bag. I liked the voices and performance of both women, but Johnny Heller consistently mispronounced the word, nuclear, and that got on my last nerve. I finally had to just skip over his part because I did not find his voice fitting for the part.

This is a standalone and is not part of any series.

Tags and genre - science fiction, time travel, Cold War, pilots, dual timeline