Self-styled physicist Dr. Abdul Abdan is an expert in flattery. He cons Chairman Bud Lightfoot of the powerful Fuels Agency to gamble for "your date with destiny." The gamble hits the jackpot: captivity in the Alps, ruined romance, murder - tangled in a true tale of government deception. The public doesn't win. "Ruthless federal bureaucrats stop at nothing to fire underlings and revive the zeppelin industry in this farcical thriller. "One harebrained scheme after another moves the lurching narrative forward.... "There's a splash of dirigible lore, but it's the novel's stagy, anachronistic prose and dialogue--'Fearlessness has brought us to these heights, madam, and fealessness shall sustain us'--that most evoke the Hindenburg era." -- Kirkus Reviews