Life Flight

This mystery romance thrusts the reader into a harrowing day in the lives of the two main characters, unfolding an intricate plot filled with suspense and surprises that never let up. EMS helicopter pilot Penny Carlton and FBI agent Holt Satterfield had met eighteen months earlier when she saved his life. It was instant love but with both consumed by work they’d only had time for “brief dinners and short conversations on the phone” since their first meeting. They are suddenly brought together when a violent storm forces Penny down on the same mountain where the FBI is tracking an escaped killer, Darius Rabor. The danger is palpable as Penny leaves the helicopter in blinding rain on a treacherous slope seeking some way to get word to the hospital and save the critically injured teenage girl in her care. At a remote house Penny gets help and learns the area is in lock-down due to the presence of a condemned killer roaming the mountain. Searching nearby with other agents and aware that news of the helicopter’s emergency landing is now widespread, Holt suspects Rabor will head to the aircraft and take hostages. Having the same fear, Penny first gets another EMS flight dispatched then she goes back to warn the two medics watching over the patient in the chopper. Penny reaches the site just as the backup helicopter lands and the FBI team emerges from the woods. After a quick reunion with Holt, she helps the others transport the injured girl to the functional helicopter when they are suddenly fired upon by Rabor from the trees. Holt’s two colleagues are wounded then loaded onto the copter which manages to lift off leaving Holt and Penny to face their assailant. The pair survive a violent confrontation with Rabor in a denouement that appears to have ended the arch-villain’s plans. This allows for a respite where Penny and Holt can consider their feelings for each other. But the interlude is short-lived, and the hero and heroine are quickly pulled back into facing a danger that threatens both of their lives. Lack of time is the least of the obstacles keeping the prospective lovers apart. Both Penny and Holt are revealed to have flaws, problems in their past and in their individual families, parts of their lives they wish to keep secret but this obsession with “shielding self” keeps them from coming together despite their intense mutual attraction. The story is carried almost entirely through character dialogue, a technique allowing bits and pieces of backstory to drop easily through normal conversation, letting the reader gradually learn the full history of each player. Many of the characters have past connections, relationships that build into the complexity of the plot, points that the author deftly knits together, smoothly, and seamlessly. Eason keeps the narrative tight and focused, never losing track of the myriad characters in the story, providing them with whatever skills or background necessary to advance the multiple plot angles. The complex plot raises many questions, but these are quickly answered through the conversational interludes. But employing a dialogue-driven storyline has its own drawbacks, mainly the tendency toward cliché ridden speech. The other extreme is to use the least dialogue required for the story, a method I used in my first novel, garnering critical reviews: “[characters] speak to each other in formal, dry tones that obscure their personalities and impede true connections.” Eason avoids any such pitfalls, constantly showing body language and evoking visceral responses as the main characters analyze each other’s tone of voice and eye and facial expressions as though they are super-sensitive to the other feelings and emotions. The players are shown frequently “taking a breath.” “Penny glanced at her watch, then twisted it around her wrist. She sighed and dropped her hand.” Eason almost carries the “show, don’t tell” technique to an extreme. Eventually Eason’s clean, wholesome story descends into the macabre as the depth of Rabor’s depravity is revealed. The story is like a puzzle that must be pieced together page by page. As soon as one question is answered, new ones crop up. There is an occasional red herring to tease the reader, but at length the myriad plot angles are resolved and Penny and Holt are together.