Kingfisher - 1977

Summary
There were few who had seen the student arrested. There was no siren, no flashing light. There was nothing of it in the Kiev news. But for the other three, all Ukrainian Jews, it was a signal to try for freedom. They hijacked a plane and made for the West.

One country after another refused to help - they could have no truck with hijackers, least of all Soviet dissidents. Almost out of fuel, the plane landed in England. Political refugees or murderous criminals? While the authorities took their time to decide, the students chose the only route left to them...

Extract
"Take the bloody thing up", he yelled, and pushed sideways with the gun barrel at the pilots shoulders, aware there had been no response, still staring at the labyrinth of controls, still searching for the magic of the altimeter.
Isaac said, his voice quiet, "You're wasting your time, David. No point in shouting at him. You have killed him."

Reviews
"Unusually good...convincing and exciting. Its background is meticulously and skilfully sketched in" FINANCIAL TIMES

"Gerald Seymour's accomplished new thriller turns the tables for a change. Instead of enemy terrorists preying on us or our friends, it is a trio of Russian Jews who hijack an 'enemy' plane...in order to escape to Israel via Europe. Thus our sympathies are divided...And this state produces palm-sweating tension - tension so taut that the smallest development explodes in the reader's head. Seymour builds drama within drama within drama both inside the plane's cabin and outside" NEW YORK TIMES

"Gerald Seymour is the finest thriller writer in the world today" DAILY TELEGRAPH