Saucer: The Conquest (U)

240 THOUSAND MILES APART...Someone is using top-secret information about saucer technology, information that comes from the mysterious top-secret region in Nevada known as Area 51. Meanwhile, Charley takes up flying space planes to the moon for the French lunar base project. There she discovers a madman and a world-threatening antigravity beam A HEART BEAT AWAY...When Charley sees how high the stakes are, she needs the kind of help that only Rip can bring her by prying his saucer out of the hands of the U.S. Government and hurtling it toward the moon...THE CONQUEST HAS BEGUN...A furious duel is in the offing between a megalomaniac bent on the conquest of Earth and a handful of runaway heroes. As a plot that reaches back 50 years explodes, a horrific weapon is trained on the Earth's cities; humankind is dragged to the brink and offered a fearsome choice surrender or death..."Fast-paced...superb flying sequences." Booklist"A gripping aerial duel." Publishers Weekly Visit Stephen Coonts' website at www.coonts.com Publishers Weekly In this humorous UFO thriller, the sequel to bestseller Coonts's Saucer (2003), pilot Charlotte "Charley" Pine is hired to fly a French spaceplane to the moon, where millionaire Pierre Artois is building a base. Once there, she discovers that Artois has equipped the base with an antigravity beam projector and plans to make himself and his malevolent wife, Julie, rulers of the world. Charley promptly returns to Earth to warn everybody. Meanwhile, Newton Chadwick, a mad scientist in the pay of the French, kidnaps saucer-expert Egg Cantrell and forces him to fly to the moon in the original Roswell saucer that landed in 1947. Egg's nephew Rip Cantrell and Charley steal another flying saucer from the Smithsonian, and soon saucers and other borrowed alien high-tech are in pitched battle over the moon. Later, French pilot Jean-Paul Lalouette (perhaps the book's most engaging character) is determined to go down fighting and nearly turns the tables in a gripping aerial duel of saucers up and down the East Coast. Cartoonish characters with names like Senator Blohardt and Joe Bob Hooker add to the fun. Agent, Robert Gottlieb. (Sept. 7) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.