Flying Hero Class

Book excerpt: From the author of Man Booker Prize–winning Schindler’s Ark Palestinian terrorists hijack a flight from New York bound for Frankfurt that holds an unusual group of passengers: a troupe of dancers from the aboriginal Australian Barramatjara tribe. The hijackers single out Frank McCloud, the troupe’s Caucasian manager, as an “Exploiter of Landless People” and attempt to persuade the dancers to join their cause. Whose side will they take? What do the other passengers—a conservative Japanese-American woman, a Fleet Street–journalist, and a Jewish software engineer—have to say about the hijackers message? As the airliner searches for a landing place in the Mediterranean, Keneally examines how the hijackers and hijacked alike respond under pressure in this explosive novel, which will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very end.