Night Fall

September 20, 2004
Demille's latest is sure to be a #1 bestseller—but it's also sure to be controversial. The book is centered on an investigation of the July 1996 crash of flight TWA 800, "when... a big Boeing 747 bound for Paris with 230 passengers and crew on board, exploded off the Atlantic coast of Long Island, sending all 230 souls to their deaths." In July 2001, Federal Anti-Terrorist Task Force detective John Corey, a brilliant, smart-ass detective last seen in Plum Island
and The Lion's Game
, accompanies his FBI agent wife, Kate Mayfield, to the fifth anniversary of the disaster. John, whose wife worked the crash in 1996, understands that Kate has brought him along because she doesn't buy the official finding of "mechanical failure" and wants him to mount his own investigation. There are 200 eyewitnesses who swear they saw a missile lift into the clear night sky and bring down the airplane, a charge dismissed by the CIA as an optical illusion. Though Corey is warned away from the investigation, like any good fictional detective, this only serves to spur him on. He uncovers evidence that a man and a woman, on the beach that fateful night videotaping their adulterous affair, inadvertently caught on tape the missile hitting the plane. The book is primarily about John tracking down the couple, but as the end nears, readers will begin to understand the perilous direction in which Demille is leading them. The pages will turn in a blur as a feeling of dread grows, until the end comes and one's worst fears are confirmed. Readers will think about this one for a long time. Agent, Nicholas Ellison
.

July 1, 2004
Detective John Corey returns, hot on the trail of a homemade sex video that inadvertently reveals why Flight 800 crashed. A ten-city author tour.

Copyright 2004 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2004
In " The Lion's Game" (1999), DeMille left open the possibility for a sequel, and here it is. Former NYPD cop John Corey now works for the Federal Anti-Terrorist Task Force, but, no, the story is not about our current war on terror--at least, not exactly. The book opens in the summer of 1986 with two seemingly innocent characters witnessing the real-life crash of TWA Flight 800 over Long Island Sound. Cut to the fifth anniversary of the crash, which finds John Corey and his wife, FBI agent Kate Mayfield, who was on the team that investigated Flight 800, still not convinced that mechanical failure caused the 747 to explode in the sky, especially given the fact that hundreds of witnesses saw a white streak of light ascending toward the aircraft prior to the crash. Could terrorism have played a role? Is there a government cover-up? The no-nonsense John doesn't usually buy conspiracy theories, but this time the facts drive him and his wife to unofficially reopen the case, much to the chagrin of some powerful people. By setting the story during the summer of 2001, before the events of 9/11 made us forget Flight 800, DeMille underscores both the many unanswered questions about multiple plots against the U.S and the turf wars that have resulted in miscues among the various intelligence agencies. A timely and intense thriller starring a thoroughly likable hero, whose final scene promises yet another return.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.)