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A review by bookishwendy
Skyjack: The Hunt for D. B. Cooper by Geoffrey Gray
3.0
Oh how quaint, those long lost days of the monthly air hijack that ended either in Cuba, or in a parachute jump with a satchel full of cash. Back in the early 70s, before metal detectors and pat-downs became a rite of passage in airports, the hijack was practically a spectator sport. And, so the legend goes, it was all started by a John Doe known to the media as D.B. Cooper.
My first encounter with the D.B. Cooper urban legend was in a book I had as a kid about unsolved mysteries. I remember the details pretty well: a nondescript guy in a business suit hijacks a plane with a (fake) bomb, demands $200,000 in cash and a parachute, lowers the aft stairs of the in-flight 727 and leaps into the stormy night, never to be seen again. Even back then, I remember my 10-year-old self asking "what's the mystery? He's dead." The stolen cash never appeared in circulation again (though a few bundles were found buried on a beach near the probable drop site in 1980). Everyone who ever came forward, it seems, had a history of mental illness. Just because a few kooks swear they are the long-lost princess Anastasia doesn't prove their story--same with Cooper. There's just not enough evidence to prove anything at all. But that doesn't stop author Gray from tracking down and interviewing every last kook...and that's the REAL story here.
If you were looking for the "definitive" D.B. Cooper solution, this book doesn't deliver on that front. However, if you're a fan of This American Life-type stories in which the weirdness of the journey is more fulfilling than any neatly tied solution, this book might be a fun ride. The book starts out with a straightforward narration of the D.B. Cooper case, but as the author/investigator hits more dead-ends, he begins to follow crazier and crazier leads, ending with (I thought) a fitting meta-moment where. It's a hell of a long shaggy dog joke, perhaps, but I did laugh at the end.
My first encounter with the D.B. Cooper urban legend was in a book I had as a kid about unsolved mysteries. I remember the details pretty well: a nondescript guy in a business suit hijacks a plane with a (fake) bomb, demands $200,000 in cash and a parachute, lowers the aft stairs of the in-flight 727 and leaps into the stormy night, never to be seen again. Even back then, I remember my 10-year-old self asking "what's the mystery? He's dead." The stolen cash never appeared in circulation again (though a few bundles were found buried on a beach near the probable drop site in 1980). Everyone who ever came forward, it seems, had a history of mental illness. Just because a few kooks swear they are the long-lost princess Anastasia doesn't prove their story--same with Cooper. There's just not enough evidence to prove anything at all. But that doesn't stop author Gray from tracking down and interviewing every last kook...and that's the REAL story here.
If you were looking for the "definitive" D.B. Cooper solution, this book doesn't deliver on that front. However, if you're a fan of This American Life-type stories in which the weirdness of the journey is more fulfilling than any neatly tied solution, this book might be a fun ride. The book starts out with a straightforward narration of the D.B. Cooper case, but as the author/investigator hits more dead-ends, he begins to follow crazier and crazier leads, ending with (I thought) a fitting meta-moment where