John J. Nance books in order

A government investigator looks into the cover-up of a deadly plane crash.

In the control tower at Kansas City International Airport, all the radar displays are red. But for the experienced pilots of North America Airlines, the thunderstorms aren’t the problem: NAA has been cutting costs to stave off bankruptcy, and will do anything to keep their planes in the air. Unfortunately, no matter what they do, one is on its way down. 

After the aircraft collides with another plane on the Kansas City runway, in one of the worst aviation disasters of the decade, National Transportation Safety Board investigator Joe Wallingford arrives on the scene. 

As he studies the wreckage and pieces together the events that led to the tragedy, he realizes there’s far more at play than pilot error or equipment malfunction. Wallingford will have to risk his career—and perhaps even his life—to solve the puzzle of the crash.

Two air force pilots race to stop an Iraqi bioweapon...

A scientist charged by Saddam Hussein with pioneering a horrific breakthrough in biological warfare, Shakir Abbas defects at the American embassy to warn the world of the new weapon. America’s worst nightmare has come true—and now US forces must scramble to put together a plan to destroy the weapon of mass destruction.

When the operation goes awry in Saudi Arabia, Col. Will Westerman commandeers a C-141 transport to get the Special Forces team into Iraq. With the help of air force buddy Col. Doug Harris, Westerman reaches his target only to discover that the unthinkable has happened. Now they must use all their ingenuity, daring, and adrenaline to stop a worldwide catastrophe—and survive what looks increasingly like a suicide mission.

A female investment banker starts up a visionary airline, taking on Wall Street, the airline industry, and an international terrorist syndicate.

The bed is so comfortable that Elizabeth Sterling sleeps through her alarm, high above the Pacific, reveling in the comforts of the most luxurious airliner ever built. It’s the flagship of the newly revived Pan Am, the most audacious experiment in aviation history. The airline’s backers believe they can redefine commercial air travel by providing luxury at forty thousand feet—and they need Sterling to get them off the ground.

A Wall Street titan with a love of flying, Sterling is up to the challenge. But when the venture comes under attack by its lenders, competitors, and a shadowy cabal of international terrorists, she needs more than a new business strategy. 

With help from chief pilot Brian Murphy and investigator Creighton MacRae, Sterling masterminds a risky plan to defeat the sinister forces that are sabotaging her new airline and threatening her life.

A plane carrying a supervirus searches for a place to land...

On a snowy road in a German forest, Ernest Helms sees a man trying to break into his car. After a scuffle, Helms escapes with only a cut on his hand. Hours later, he collapses aboard a flight from Frankfurt to New York. The pilot, Capt. James Holland, radios London to plan an emergency landing to save Helms—and then the nightmare begins.

Heathrow denies Holland permission to land: Helms has been stricken with an ultracontagious pathogen that threatens the entire planet. When Germany also refuses to let him land, Holland and his passengers are prisoners of the sky, caught between a deadly disease and a world that would rather shoot them down than risk contamination

A pilot races through the sky to stop a nuclear catastrophe.

Vivian Henry hasn’t heard her ex-husband’s voice in three years, but it still fills her with fear. Dangerous and brilliant, Dr. Rogers Henry is calling because he’s dying. He offers Vivian a fortune in insurance money if she’ll carry out one final task for him: Take the Medusa device to Washington, DC. 

The Medusa is his life’s work—a thermonuclear bomb capable of knocking out all modern technology in the country—and he wants her to deliver it to the Pentagon before it falls into the wrong hands.

Cargo plane captain Scott McKay is miles above the ground when the Medusa begins to speak. A recording of Dr. Henry’s voice announces that the device is active and about to explode. With nowhere to land, Captain McKay must rely on his instincts and fly like he has never flown before to prevent a worldwide apocalypse.

In the skies above Europe, a Boeing 737 jets toward an unknown destination. On board is John Harris—a fugitive from justice. Charged by an international accord of ordering the torture of hundreds of innocent people, he is the most wanted man in the world. 

He is the former President of the United States.

The pilot, Captain Craig Dayton, realizes that a silent conspiracy against John Harris is taking shape, and that every moment the plane spends on the ground makes a target for his enemies—who have already condemned him for his crimes. Now, as both sides wage a war of words in the most powerful courts in the world, the only safe haven left is in the air...

A planeload of enraged passengers declares mutiny when their captain makes an emergency landing in the middle of a war zone...

In a desperate attempt to cut costs, Meridian Airlines has given up on any pretense of customer service. The passengers on Meridian Flight Six from Boston to Cape Town are fed up with hours-long delays, uncomfortable cabin conditions, and rude airline personnel. But Brian Logan is more than a disgruntled passenger: He believes Meridian killed his wife and he’s about to take revenge by lighting the fuse of disaster.

When Capt. Phil Knight makes a forced landing in a hotbed of insurgents in Nigeria, he’s facing more than a rebel firefight. Violence erupts inside the cabin as Logan leads the passengers in a revolt. But with the loss of radio contact, the civilians don’t realize that NATO and the CIA believe their plane has been hijacked by terrorists and must be taken down.

A scientist and a pilot’s daughter investigate a top-secret computer program that can control any plane in the sky...

For eighteen months, Dr. Ben Cole has worked to develop Skyhook, a highly advanced autopilot that can direct aircraft from the ground. On the first test run, something goes wrong over the Gulf of Alaska plunging Cole’s plane toward a supertanker at maximum speed. But moments before impact, the computer switches off, saving his life.

Seeking answers, Cole joins forces with April Rosen, whose pilot father narrowly missed his own midair collision over the same waters where Skyhook was tested. Unraveling the mystery of these near-disasters pits Cole and Rosen against shadowy forces within the Pentagon who will go to dangerous lengths to keep the public from discovering the true purpose—and the real dangers—of Skyhook.

Veteran pilot Clark Maxwell thought his fire bombing days were well behind him. But when Jerry Stein, Maxwell's friend and airtanker fleet-owner, calls at the height of the fire season to beg him to reenter the war, he doesn't hesitate. 

A pair of ferocious forest fires is raging out of control, threatening to destroy Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks and incinerate thousands of area homes. As the wildfires spread, whipped by massive winds, and the federal forces arrayed against the fires reach their limits, anxiety grows in the local population. A paranoia plagues the fire bombers and smoke jumpers as well, after a mysterious string of violent airborne accidents among the airtanker fleet claims the lives of some of the most fearless and experienced veterans.

Maxwell has long argued that the airtankers -- old aircraft used by pilots to bomb the fires with fire retardant slurry -- are faulty museum pieces that should have been grounded years ago. Now some of the fleet seem to be falling apart in midair. In the middle of the area's worst wildfire season in history, Maxwell is convinced that a sinister cover-up is behind the rash of horrific air disasters. Were the planes' inspection papers forged? Is someone capitalizing on these crashes? 

As he races to unravel a very real mystery and prevent a natural disaster of massive proportions, Maxwell's probe reaches the upper levels of the very government agencies charged with mount-ing the aerial fire fighting effort -- a move that for wholly unexpected reasons just may cost him his life...and the life of Karen Jones, the married smoke jumper with whom he seems to have fallen in love.

A few hundred years ago, Cascadia Island didn't even exist. Like the Washington seacoast, it was rock submerged beneath the Pacific. A massive earthquake changed that, exploding the rock upward, making it land -- unstable land, according to seismologist Dr. Doug Lam.

Lam has spent years researching the Cascadia Subduction Zone. He published a theory that the unrelieved tectonic strain beneath the idyllic landscape of Cascadia Island could be triggered with modern construction processes -- with catastrophic results. The paper was disregarded, even ridiculed, by his peers and by megawealthy developer Mick Walker, who stands to earn millions from the construction of a luxury resort on Cascadia. The elegant casino, hotel, and convention center will reap millions for him even if the tiny island only lasts for a short time...

When a series of earthquakes begins to shake the Northwest Corridor, Doug's worst fears are confirmed. In an attempt to convince Walker to evacuate Cascadia immediately, Doug hurries to join guests arriving for the resort's grand opening. As the tremors wreak havoc across the Northwest coastal area, the military is left with too few resources to assist the people on Cascadia. Convinced that the island will be in ruins within hours, Doug reluctantly calls upon his girlfriend, Jennifer Lindstrom, president of Nightingale Aviation -- a major medical transport helicopter company -- for help.

With snow falling, visibility dropping, and winds increasing, Doug embarks on an impossible mission with Jennifer and Nightingale's helicopters to evacuate over three hundred people, while smaller earthquakes continue to herald the approach of a catastrophic tsunami.

The year is 2009. For Kip Dawson, winning a passenger seat on American Space Adventure's spacecraft is a dream come true. One grand shot of insanity and he can return to earth fulfilled. But the thrill of the successful launch turns to terror when a micrometeorite penetrates the capsule, leaving the radios as dead as the pilot. Reality hits: Kip isn't going home.

With nothing to do but wait for his doomed fate, Kip writes his epitaph on the ship's laptop computer, unaware that an audience of millions has discovered it and is tracking his every word on the Internet. As a massive struggle gets underway to rescue him, Kip has no idea that the world can hear his cries -- or that his heroism in the face of death may sabotage his best chance of survival.

Over the Atlantic in the dark of night, the electronic brain of Pangia Airlines Flight 10 quietly and without warning disconnects all the cockpit controls and reverses course on its own.

The crew of the huge Airbus 330 at first sense nothing, the flight displays still showing them on course to New York. But with puzzled passengers reporting stars on the wrong side and growing alarm over the sudden failure of all their radios - and when armed fighters pull alongside to force them to land - the confused pilots discover that Flight 10 is streaking back toward the hyper-volatile Middle East and there is nothing they can do about it.

With an alphabet soup of federal agencies struggling for answers and messages flying between Washington, and Tel Aviv where the flight began, the growing supposition that Flight 10 may be hijacked is fueled by the presence of a feared and hated former head of state sitting in first class, a man with an extreme Mid East agenda who may somehow be responsible for the Airbus A-330's loss of control. 

As frantic speculation spreads, the possibility that the unresponsive airliner could be the leading edge of a sophisticated attack on Iran designed to provoke a nuclear response drives increasingly desperate decisions.

As time and fuel runs low, flying at full throttle toward a hostile border ahead, Captain Jerry Tollefson and First Officer Dan Horneman have to put their personal animosities aside and risk everything to wrest control from the electronic ghost holding them – and perhaps the world - on a course to certain disaster.

And in the "Hole" - as the war room in Tel Aviv is called - the interim Prime Minister of Israel grapples with a horrifying choice in the balance between 300 airborne lives and the probability of nuclear war.

On takeoff from Denver during a winter blizzard, an airliner piloted by veteran Captain Marty Mitchell overruns a commuter plane from behind. Bizarrely, the fuselage of the smaller aircraft is tenuously wedged onto the huge right wing of his Boeing 757, leading Mitchell to an impossible life-or-death choice.

Mitchell’s decision will land the former military pilot in the cross-hairs of a viciously ambitious district attorney determined to send him to prison for doing his job. Despondent and deeply wounded by what he sees as betrayal by the system, Mitchell at first refuses to defend himself or even assist the corporate lawyer forced against her will to represent him.

Pitted against the prosecutorial prowess of flamboyant Denver DA Grant Richardson, who is using Mitchell’s case to audition for a presidential appointment as a U.S. attorney, is young defense attorney Judith Winston. Her lack of experience in criminal cases could mean the end of Mitchell’s freedom, if he doesn’t end his own life first. 

However, a rising level of gritty determination even her law partners have never witnessed before, propels Winston to lay it all on the table to save Mitchell and expose Richardson as a fraud.

This is the behind-the-scenes story of the destruction of Braniff International and an unusually candid and carefully researched account of a unique human and business tragedy.

Arguing that deregulation has added nearly irresistible economic pressures to a system already strained, the author, a pilot and lawyer, examines the limitations of the Federal Aviation Administration, explores the role of human performance in safety problems, and presents practical solutions to the problems.

Far beneath the earth’s surface, great tectonic plates grind against one another with incredible pressure that must—inevitably—be released. Earthquakes manifest with little warning, upending buildings, shattering infrastructure, and unleashing devastating tsunamis. 

In this remarkable survey of the history of seismology and the extraordinary seismic events that have occurred in the United States, Mexico, China, and other locales, author John J. Nance traces the discoveries of the scientists who have dedicated their lives to understanding and predicting one of the deadliest threats known to mankind.

From the Pacific Northwest to the Midwest and the East Coast, most of the United States—not just California—is in danger of a massive quake, and few citizens are adequately prepared. Through riveting firsthand interviews with earthquake survivors, and with the same command of technical detail and gripping style that he brings to his New York Times–bestselling thrillers, Nance demonstrates the need for readiness—because the next big quake could happen tomorrow.

In an age where business is too often seen as brutal combat devoid of ethics and human concern, the amazing story of Harold Simmons' journey from bank trainee to one of the nation's wealthiest, most successful corporate investors is an inspiring record of intelligence, honesty, and faith in the American system.

It is also a fascinating trip through the byzantine realities of high corporate finance and corporate acquisition, and a validation of the idea that the true value of public companies can be discovered through nothing more than intellect, hard work, and public records.

This is the story of Harold Simmons, whose journey from his home in Golden, Texas, has been on a path paved in gold.

This book is a tour de force, and no one but John Nance could have written it. He, alone, masters in one mind the fields of aviation, health care safety, medical malpractice law, organizational sociology, media communication, and, as if that were not enough, the art of fine writing. Only he could have made sophisticated, scientifically disciplined instruction about the nature and roots of safety into a page-turner. 

Medical care has a ton yet to learn from the decades of progress that have brought aviation to unprecedented levels of safety, and, in instructing us all about those lessons, John Nance is not just a bridge-builder - he is the bridge. This book should be required reading for anyone willing to face the facts about what it will take for health care to be as safe as it truly can be.

"Charting the Course" is the sequel to John J. Nance's best-selling, award-winning novel "Why Hospitals Should Fly". John Nance and his wife, Kathleen Bartolomew, have co-written the continuing story of Dr. Will Jenkins as he takes over the leadership the fictional Las Vegas Memorial Hospital. 

John Nance and Kathleen Bartholomew address head-on how to become a top-level institution by illuminating the norms of the current hospital culture and then demonstrating how each member of every medical facility, regardless of rank, must be a leader and owner of the cultural revolution needed to keep their hospital system viable and their patients safe. 

Whereas "Why Hospitals Should Fly" dealt more with the "why" of a cultural revolution, "Charting the Course" deals more with the "how" of changing an ingrained hospital culture. Study guide provided at end of book.

An FBI hostage negotiator confronts a commercial pilot who has hijacked his own plane.

Airline pilot Ken Wolfe does not rattle easily. But when he learns that Rudolph Bostich is on his flight, his face goes pale. Bostich, the presumptive nominee for US Attorney General, bungled the case against the man who kidnapped and killed Wolfe’s daughter. The pilot is prepared to do whatever it takes to get revenge—even setting off a bomb on a plane full of passengers.

FBI agent, psychologist, and rookie hostage negotiator Kat Bronsky now has one hundred and thirty lives riding on her every word. As Bronsky speaks with the volatile Wolfe, she realizes she must solve the mystery of an eleven-year-old girl’s murder—in a matter of hours—to avert disaster.

FBI agent Kat Bronsky uncovers a conspiracy to send planes falling from the sky.

A Boeing/McDonnell-Douglas MD-11 jetliner crashes into the Gulf of Mexico a mile inside Cuban waters, killing all three hundred and twenty passengers onboard. The last three minutes on the plane’s cockpit voice and data recorders have been erased. Was this a massive mechanical failure or an act of terrorism?

At an air terrorism conference, FBI agent Kat Bronsky learns Washington Post reporter Robert McCabe has received frightening information about the MD-11 crash from a source that mysteriously disappeared. When another airliner goes down after its pilots are flash-blinded midflight, Bronsky and McCabe find themselves at the center of what might be a deadly government cover-up.

Unable to trust her colleagues at the FBI, Bronsky must rely on her own wits and piloting skills as she races from the jungles of Vietnam to the forests of the American Northwest to unmask the conspirators before the entire American airline industry comes crashing out of the sky.

Medusa's Child: When a mysterious crate is discovered on Captain Scott McKay’s plane, he is ordered to abandon his present course and fly the crate and its owner to Washington, D.C. McKay takes the forced detour in stride - until a voice from deep inside the crate warns that the shipment is actually a fully armed Medusa device, a thermonuclear bomb that can destroy every computer chip over an entire continent. 

Saving Cascadia: A few hundred years ago, Cascadia Island didn’t even exist. It was rock submerged beneath the Pacific. A massive earthquake changed that, exploding the rock upward, making it land – unstable land, according to seismologist Dr. Doug Lam. When a series of earthquakes begins to shake the Northwest Corridor, Doug’s worst fears are confirmed. Convinced that the island will be in ruins within hours, Doug calls upon his girlfriend, Jennifer Lindstrom, president of Nightingale Aviation, for help with the evacuation. 

Orbit: For Kip Dawson, winning a passenger seat on American Space Adventure’s first commercial spaceflight is a dream come true. But a successful launch quickly morphs into chaos when a micrometeor punches through the wall of the spacecraft, leaving the radios as dead as the pilot. With nothing to do but wait for his fate, Kip writes his epitaph on the ship’s laptop computer, unaware that an audience of millions has discovered it and is tracking his every word on the Internet.

Orbit: For Kip Dawson, winning a passenger seat on American Space Adventure’s first commercial spaceflight is a dream come true. But a successful launch quickly morphs into chaos when a micrometeor punches through the wall of the spacecraft, leaving the radios as dead as the pilot. With nothing to do but wait for his fate, Kip writes his epitaph on the ship’s laptop computer, unaware that an audience of millions has discovered it and is tracking his every word on the Internet.

Fire Flight: A pair of ferocious forest fires rages out of control, threatening to destroy two American national parks and incinerate thousands of homes and park buildings. As the desperate battle to squelch the global warming-induced fires before they "blow up" reaches a fever-pitch, a mysterious string of violent airborne accidents among the air tanker fleet produces a mounting body count. Veteran pilot Clark Maxwell thought his fire-bombing days were well behind him. But when Jerry Stein, Maxwell's friend and air tanker fleet-owner, calls on him at the height of the fire season, he doesn't hesitate. As the wildfires spread, hysteria and potential evacuation threatens the local population. In the middle of this crisis, Clark Maxwell becomes convinced that a sinister cover-up is behind the rash of horrific air disasters. As he races to unravel a very real mystery and prevent a natural disaster of massive proportions, Maxwell's probe reaches the upper levels of government agencies charged with mounting the aerial firefighting effort—a move that for wholly unexpected reasons just may cost him his life.

Saving Cascadia: A few hundred years ago, Cascadia Island didn’t even exist. It was rock submerged beneath the Pacific. A massive earthquake changed that, exploding the rock upward, making it land – unstable land, according to seismologist Dr. Doug Lam. When a series of earthquakes begins to shake the Northwest Corridor, Doug’s worst fears are confirmed. Convinced that the island will be in ruins within hours, Doug calls upon his girlfriend, Jennifer Lindstrom, president of Nightingale Aviation, for help with the evacuation.

Skyhook: The "boomerang box," a high-tech computer program designed to save a plane experiencing flight trouble, is Dr. Ben Cole''s baby. After a test run over the Gulf of Alaska goes awry, he suspects someone has sabotaged the plane's computer systems. And mysteriously, and almost simultaneously, April Rosen is horrified to learn that her father's plane has narrowly escaped a mid-air collision over the same patch of sea. While Dr. Cole considers the uncomfortable notion that someone within his own company might wish him harm, Rosen begins her search for the cause of her father's hair-raising "near miss." But what both don't know is this: their fears have a common source.

Turbulence: The passengers of Meridian Flight 6—delayed for hours and mistreated by rude and inept airline personnel—have been pushed to the edge. When Captain Phil Knight makes a forced emergency landing in war-torn Nigeria, abandoning his co-pilot to certain death, violence erupts inside the airplane as the enraged passengers attempt the first-ever commercial airline mutiny. But what they don''t know could kill them: The unscheduled loss of radio contact has led NATO and the CIA to believe they have been hijacked by terrorists and must be carrying a deadly chemical weapon into the heart of Western Europe.

Headwind: In Athens, a Boeing 737 noses into the gate, and its crew is suddenly confronted by Greek officials waiting to arrest one of its passengers, a beloved ex-President of the United States, John Harris. Captain Craig Dayton, believing Harris' life is in danger, stages a daring escape by backing the jet away from the gate without clearance and taking off down a vacant runway. The dilemma for Captain Dayton and his precious cargo is that Peru has signed an Interpol warrant for President Harris' arrest, using the same treaty employed to extradite former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.

Lockout: Whoever has electronically disconnected the flight controls of Pangia Flight 10 as it streaks toward the volatile Middle East may be trying to provoke a nuclear war. With time and fuel running out, the pilots are forced to put animosities aside and risk everything to wrest control from the electronic ghost holding them on a course to disaster.

Paper Wings: When a boat is found adrift off Fort Lauderdale, the investigation leads to more than murder—the evidence points to an “accident” that downed a passenger jet in Bermuda. Capt. Hart Lindy’s role in the NTSB investigation puts him on a flight path to danger trying to determine what really happened to Flight 63.

The Strait: Upon learning that Swede Bergstrom, the hero who saved his life, has been killed during the commission of a crime, pilot Jake Silver agrees to follow Swede’s mysterious and beautiful sister, Christina, on a search to clear her brother’s name. Their odyssey will take them into the heart of darkness itself, dodging death every step of the way . . .