Flight Dreams

Michael Craft is absolutely my favorite author. Jump aboard for a great ride with this the first novel in the Mark Manning series. The only other series that ranks as high in my book is the Todd Mill series by RD Zimmerman.

Flight Dreams is another one of those books that you want to keep reading. Great character development and enough continuing plot lines to know that Mark Manning is going to have more dead bodies to trip over in the future! This is definitely a fun read! I have read every book in the Mark Manning series, and Flight Dreams was a great kickoff. This book is the first of a series that just gets better.

I love the Mark Manning series (6 books thus far). I have read the first four of the series and am eager to finish the two recently published ones, when I have uninterrupted time on my hand. To-date Flight Dreams remains my favorite. Mark is sensitive, mature and sexy. The mystery is fast paced and suspensful enough to hold the reader. Spiced with Mark's coming-out and the development of his relationship with the compatible Neil, the story is definitely more emotional and a notch above other gay mystery novels. I hope Mr Craft will continue with the series.

I've just finished reading Mr. Michael Craft's debut of his intriguing investigative reporter, Mark Manning. "Flight Dreams" is a well-crafted story on two levels. First, as an obvious mystery, Mr. Craft is vastly adept in plotting an interesting and tangled web of deceit and herring (of the auburn kind). The disappearance of Helena Carter, and the reasons for it, take the reader through some unexpected territory. Secondly, the author writes the characters as fully fleshed-out, three-dimensional embodiments of people we could all know or care about. Mark Manning is a wonderful and complex creation. The exploration of Manning's psyche and realizations of religion and sexuality are at once familiar and intriguing. The author's use of "flight" metaphorically and as allusion in specific instances with several different characters, in slightly shaded meanings, is a remarkable literary device (and one the non-observant may overlook). The book also has much to say about the relevance of religion and its struggles with conscience. I have already ordered the second installment of the Manning series and look forward to many others. I'd strongly recommend this title for any readers who love a good mystery, great storytelling, and characters who are not always wrong or right--but human.

Helena Caster, a rich and widowed Chicago socialite, disappeared seven years ago along with a pair of her prize breeding Abyssinian cats. Nobody knows if she was murdered, kidnapped, or left of her own free will. If she doesn't return soon, she will be declared legally dead and her fortune divided up between the Chicago Archdiocese and her favorite cat foundation. Everyone including the police, the estate attorneys, and her own sister believe that she is dead, all except for one man. Reporter, Mark Manning has followed the case from its beginnings. He alone has written column after column addressing all the evidence that points to her leaving of her own free will. ........ When his allegations become a story unto itself, his publisher gives him an ultimatum: find the woman before she's declared legally dead or lose the job that means everything to him. His boss's deadline forces him to look into the empty life he's been living and face up to the fact that for years he been trying to outrun the realization that he's gay. When he meets Neal Waite at a friend's party, he faces what he can no longer deny and accepts Neal's invitation to see if they can explore a future together. It is his acceptance of the truth about his own sexuality that puts him on the road to Arizona, where Neal lives, as does a woman who is breeding prize winning Abyssinians. When Manning picks up the scent of the missing heiress, he not only has to tackle the Catholic Church but a subversive group with its own agenda that they will go to any lengths to keep secret. ......... Michael Craft's debut novel is a beautiful, evocative and at time, erotic literary work. Although Craft's emphasis is on the protagonist's involvement with a mystery that he must solve or lose the career he holds so dear, the author intertwines the story line with a sub-plot about the same man coming to terms with his own sexual orientation. This allows him to find the answers to the puzzle that has plagued him for seven long years. It also enables him to accept the love he has derived himself out of for fear of society's scorn. The who-done-it is more of a why has it been done, a refreshing and delightful change from the usual run of the mill mystery. This reviewer's fervently hopes that Mr. Craft has further tales about Manning to spin. .......Harriet Klausner