Raider (A Miranda Chase thriller)

This action thriller marks the eighth installment from Buchman in the Miranda Chase brand which is gaining more and more traction. The popularity is due in part because of the short, character-driven chapters which alternate point of view at a maddening pace. Loaded with the latest techno-wizardry, the individually flawed characters each bring something to the table.

Miranda Chase herself is an autistic genius who happens to be the top investigator at the NTSB, the National Transportation Safety Board. She surrounds herself with other geniuses who each in their own right have something broken within them. In this story, a rogue hacker is bringing down aircraft by monkeying around with the GPS system. When the Vice- President’s plane crash lands in Turkey, it almost starts a war.

Although heavily researched, if there is a flaw with Buchman’s writing style, it shows in the sometimes exasperating group conversations with the easily distracted main character, suffocating all the suspense and breaking the rhythm of the storyline. Nevertheless, the characters themselves compel the reader to push through such frustrations. As a genre, Buchman is to be applauded for bringing something fresh and exciting to the table of mostly misunderstood people.