Red Line (Pilot Error Mystery/Thriller)

It’s been a year since retired National Transportation Safety Board aviation accident investigator Nick Phillips followed a trail of conspiracy to murder all the way to the doors of the Oval Office. He wants nothing more than to be left alone to operate a flight school, be a supportive husband to his wife of 25 years, and leave that ugly part of his past behind.

But when a magazine article and companion eBook claim to reveal the true story of airborne justice delivered by his hands, the anonymity of his small-town existence cannot protect him from the spotlight. Rumors of a movie deal, location scouting, and the possibility of a casting call whet the public’s appetite for answers to a host of lingering questions about what really happened.

Among the legions of strangers invading Nick’s refuge is Caitlin Monroe, a striking beauty who hires Nick to prove that someone tampered with an airplane and transformed it, along with her lover, into pieces scattered over miles of desert.

Although Nick’s initial investigation agrees with the NTSB’s findings that a combination of excessive speed, turbulence, and pilot error caused the crash, he soon uncovers a series of clues that call into question this obvious conclusion.

Everyone with something to lose or gain as a result of Nick’s findings has a hidden agenda: Caitlin, who carries a Walther .380 ACP semi-automatic pistol as more than a fashion accessory; and in her wake, a sleazy private investigator running multiple scams at once; an airplane mechanic, hauling drugs on the side and arranging the occasional murder for hire; and the mechanic’s lover, the dead pilot’s wife, suspected of hiding a black widow past as the source of a fortune to die for.

Before long, Nick is swept into a maelstrom of danger that threatens to bury him alongside Caitlin in an unmarked grave.

Following graduation from the University of Washington in Seattle with a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology, Tosh entered the United States Air Force with the intention of serving a four-year commitment as a pilot before deciding what he really wanted to do with the remainder of his professional life. One ride in a jet trainer consigned that plan to the scrap heap.

Twenty years of flying jet fighters (including two combat tours in the F-4 Phantom II) remain the highlight of his aviation career. Another twenty years as a commercial airline and corporate pilot and current enjoyment of sport aviation in light aircraft have embedded within him a passion for sharing with others his unique perspective of what it means to be an aviator.

Publication of OASIS has consumed over 27 years of intermittent effort, including 12 major revisions and multiple submissions to agents, an experience that compelled him to switch genres to write an aviation thriller series about airborne murder.

Pilot Error (2011) and Red Line (2014) are the first two novels in the series that interweaves a life-long fascination with writing and thousands of flight hours in pursuit of one goal: to create stories that entertain and put readers up close and personal within his world of the cockpit. The third novel TEST FLIGHT is in progress.