Death on the China Clipper

By Gerald Allen Wunsch

It's September 6, 1939. Twenty-seven lucky passengers are about to board the famous China Clipper bobbing at anchor in San Francisco harbor. One of them, fifteen-year-old Drew Davies, is awestruck at the size and power of the giant Boeing seaplane. "Only the world's largest airplane!" he mutters to his father, who is carrying top secret papers for General Douglas MacArthur in the Philippines. Thus begins a remarkable six-day adventure across the Pacific. After a mysterious passenger is stabbed in the heart on the Clipper, Drew befriends Reiko Tamaka, the daughter of the Japanese Consul in Honolulu. Consul Tamaka in turn has been ordered back to Japan by the US government for spying on the Pacific Fleet in Hawaii. Reiko is unlike any girl Drew's ever met. While she likes to listen to Glenn Miller at juke joints, she can be as frosty as her Coca-Cola. Drew is smitten-more than he realizes. Together he and Reiko set out to solve the murder, putting their own lives in danger. Naturally, Reiko's father is the prime suspect. Death on the China Clipper illuminates Pan American's conquest of the Pacific by air in the 1930's-one of aviation's great (and largely forgotten) triumphs. Pan Am's ambitions stretched existing aircraft technology and knowledge of navigation to the limit. Every flight faced added danger and intrigue when inevitably United States and Japanese imperial ambitions clashed. Clipper will capture the interest of both boys and girls between 11 and 16.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1468114638
• ISBN13: 9781468114638
• Release Date: January 2012
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 166 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 0.4" x 5.5"