John Grisham and General Aviation

Allan Cobb

Allan Cobb

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In the last few years I got into reading several of John Grisham's novels when a common thread began to reveal itself... that he must be a pilot (and sure enough, he is in the FAA database as a PP, ASEL/AMEL) and his books incorporate some aspect of general aviation flying. The ones I've come across so far that do this (and pretty heavily I might add) are The Summons, Gray Mountain (in both, the main characters are pilots), and The King of Torts (with a corporate jet theme).

Are there any other novels of his that do the same thing, and since I'm on the subject, are there any other fiction writers out there that do this as well?

Cheers, Allan
 
Stuart Woods wrote about 64 books in the Stone Barrington novels. Woods was an accomplished pilot and put some authentic touches into the series. Everything from progressing 172>182>type ratings with stints at FSI for initial and recurrent.

The novels were light reading in the police procedural then light thriller-with-a-side-of-trash category.

If there were b-grade novels like b-grade movies, the books would be solidly in that category with some aviation thrown in.
 
Nathan Van Coops is a commercial-rated pilot, CFI, an A&P, and if I remember right owned a shop and maybe a flight school.

His genre is mostly science fiction (time travel) and does some fantasy as well. I enjoyed his time travel books, and it's how I found out he was a pilot. One of them had a scene where the protagonist had to use a small plane, and the description of some things like the mixture control were way too accurate. I looked him up in the airman database, and sure enough he was in there.

I sent him an email and soon thereafter we interviewed him on the Stuck Mic Avcast. Pretty interesting guy, and gets to combine two of his passions!

http://stuckmicavcast.com/writing/smac244-two-passions-flying-in-formation-aviation-and-writing/
 
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IMG_5371.png IMG_5370.png IMG_5369.jpeg Peter Heller is one of my favorite authors- he writes both fiction and nonfiction. He’s a pilot, real deal expedition kayaker, and fisherman. Among many of his talents.
 
@TCABM , @Greg Bockelman , @RussR , and @SFDukie , thanks for the info! A few more ideas for my summer reading program, I'll be sure to research all of these.

I have to wonder if Grisham incorporated aviation into more of his many novels or was I just lucky in hitting the only ones? I've read four more on top of the ones already mentioned and there wasn't any aviation element.

Cheers, Allan
 
Grisham is a pilot and Iives in or near Charlottesville, VA. He used to own and fly a Baron. He spoke at my law school back in like 2009 and I had a chance to briefly chat with him. Asked about the recurring aviation theme and he told me he had been flying for many years and used to own a Baron. At that time, he said he wasn’t currently flying at all.
 
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