Departure 37

In this striking thriller, Carson (Lost Man’s Lane)—a pseudonym for crime novelist Michael Koryta—nimbly entwines a contemporary coming-of-age story with a tale of Cold War paranoia. Charlie Goodwin, 17 and half-orphaned, has relocated from Brooklyn, N.Y., to Ash Point, Maine, so her father can chase his dream of opening a brewery. There’s not much to the town, save for the long-abandoned naval air station and the wreckage of the B-52 bomber Charlie’s grandfather crashed into the side of a mountain in 1962. One morning, from the cockpit of that wreck, Charlie hears her dead mother’s voice over the radio, warning her not to fly that day, though she had no plans to do so. Across the country, hundreds of pilots receive similar messages from their own mothers, living and dead. The calls come from an AI program designed to clear the skies, triggered when a satellite detects the reappearance of a B-52 that mysteriously vanished mid-flight on a mission to drop a hydrogen bomb on Cuba to bring an end to the Cuban Missile Crisis. As Charlie’s story unfolds over a single tense afternoon, flashbacks chronicle Dr. Martin “Marty” Hazleton’s efforts to find a method to shield airplanes from nuclear fallout. With copious cliffhangers, an original premise, and a resonant emotional center, this builds on Carson’s previous success. It’s a winner. Agent: Richard Pine, InkWell Management. (Aug.)