Global Air Trouble Shooters: Book 2

About a month and a half ago, I published a review of the first book in this series by Jerry B. Jenkins, Crash in Cannibal Valley, giving it some pretty high praise. It contained more thrilling realism than I expected from a youth novel by the guy responsible for The Left Behind series, and I wondered if its follow-up tales would be as good.

We finished this second book in the meantime, and while it’s a bit more noticeably fictitious than the first, it’s just as enthralling and the stakes seem to be just as high. While some characters are found pounding at death’s door, Chad and Kate Michaels must use their wits and a courage they don’t think they have to figure out a means of rescue.

In this story, the Global Air Troubleshooters—made up of Kate, Chad, and their dad—get hired by a private couple to haul some needed medical supplies down to a newly formed South American country. Upon landing, a soldier discovers that the supplies are actually smuggled drugs and arms. In cahoots with an evil Generalissimo, this couple convinces the soldiers that the Michaels are the true smugglers, getting all three thrown into detention for questioning. With the help a kind yet confused woman, the children escape custody and find themselves on the run in a decrepit town in an unknown land, while their dad is quickly tried and sentenced to an inhuman prison to be executed within a matter of days. It’s up to Chad and Kate to figure out how to bring this wicked plot to light and rescue their dad, though not speaking Spanish and not knowing whom to trust makes this a virtually insurmountable task.

A major player in this book, oddly, is the theme of “women’s intuition.” The book starts and ends with it, and it’s mentioned a number of times throughout the story. It’s mentioned so often that it almost becomes the moral of the tale, which would be a pretty weird purpose for Jenkins to pursue. I think I prefer the stories that highlight courage, strength, loyalty, and sticking to it, and this book seemed primed for it, but, nope.

I suppose Jenkins had his reasons for including it. Maybe he thought he needed to make Kate the better hero in this second book, following Chad’s heroism in the first. And maybe as an old due who doesn’t really understand what makes an 11-year-old girl the hero of anything, “women’s intuition” was as good a ploy as anything. Its inclusion kind of made me laugh—just not in front of my 11-year-old daughter. She picks up on things…

All told, we enjoyed this book as much as the first and are looking forward to reading the third and final story, Disaster in the Yukon. It’s a tiny series but a good one from a Christian author, and I recommend it as one worth checking out.

©2024 E.T.

Read More from Jerry B. Jenkins:

• Left Behind (1995)
• Tribulation Force (1996)
• Crash in Cannibal Valley (1996)
• Terror in Branco Grande (1996)
• Disaster in the Yukon (1996)
• Book 1: The Vanishings (1998)
• Book 2: Second Chance (1998)
• The Mark (2000)
• Mark’s Story (2007)