The Air Pirate

About the book

Sir John Custance narrates the crisis that interrupted an imagined age of regular long-distance air travel. Summoned to Plymouth, he discovers that the familiar problem of piracy has acquired an aerial form, with passenger liners exposed to attacks their operators cannot explain or prevent. His duties bring him into alliance with the resourceful Danjuro, while personal attachments make the investigation more than an administrative emergency. The novel transfers the machinery of maritime adventure and detective pursuit into a speculative aviation system complete with commercial interests, public alarm, and specialized policing. Custance must learn how the attackers exploit that system before official confidence can be restored. The retrospective narration promises an explanation while preserving the sequence of clues and dangers through which the commissioner originally discovered it.

• Technology and crime
• Public duty and private danger
• Investigation and ingenuity

Why read it

The imagined infrastructure of commercial air travel gives the old pirate adventure a distinctive technological setting.

English Hurst and Blackett text published under the name Ranger Gull