Wednesday, June 1, 2011

D.B. Cooper Lives!

Or, okay, probably not. But, his legend sure does. 40 years after his successful (?) jump from a plane with $200,000 in cash, he still hasn't been found and none of the multitudinous possibilities have been defnitively named as the culprit. Geoffrey Grey, like so many who have gone before him, got sucked into the hunt for the elusive skyjacker. Thankfully, he was kind enough to record his descent into obsession in his forthcoming book, 'Skyjacker: The Hunt for D.B. Cooper'. It's a relatively short book, coming in at just under 300 pages, not including the author's notes, and it reads quickly. Though Grey never manages to determine once and for all who D.B. Cooper really was, his research provides more than enough entertainment. In fact, I think a final, conclusive revealing of the man behind the D.B. Cooper alias would have been a bit of a let-down. It's more fun to imagine Grey still out there unearthing clues and pestering witnesses and jumping to conclusions.

And, for something completely different, I also just finished Mary Pearson's 'The Fox Inheritance'. It's a sequel of sorts to 'The Adoration of Jenna Fox', which was published back in 2008. I'm not going to say much about 'The Fox Inheritance' because it's wise to read 'Adoration' first, and anything I say about 'Inheritance' is bound to contain spoilers for that first book. I'll just say that I loved 'Adoration' when I originally read it, and this sequel--while very, very different--is a worthy companion to that most excellent novel. Pearson has taken the world she created and built upon it in such a way that it seems plausible and identifiable. The ending of 'Inheritance' makes it fairly obvious that Pearson plans to tell more stories set in this world. I just hope she doesn't take another three years.

I'm on a bit of a Kids book kick right now. You've been warned.

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