Publisher, Hachette Audio (July 19, 2011)

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Twelve miles above the Pacific Ocean, a missile strikes a jumbo passenger jet. The flight crew is crippled or dead. Now, defying both nature and man, three survivors must achieve the impossible. Land the plane. From master storyteller Nelson DeMille and master pilot Thomas Block comes Mayday the classic bestseller that packs a supersonic shock every minute....the most terrifyingly realistic air disaster thriller ever. Like a growing tidal wave, the escaping air was gathering momentum. A teenaged girl in aisle 18, seat D, near the port-side aisle, her seat dislocated by the original impact, suddenly found herself gripping her seat track on the floor, her overturned seat still strapped to her body. The seatbelt failed and the seat shot down the aisle. She lost her grip and was dragged after it. Her eyes were filled with horror as she dug her nails into the carpet, as the racing air pulled her toward the yawning hole that led outside. Her cries were unheard by even those passengers who sat barely inches away from her struggle. The noise of the escaping air was so loud that it was no longer decipherable as sound, but seemed instead a solid thing pounding at the people in their seats......

About the Authors: Nelson Richard DeMille was born in New York City on August 23, 1943 to Huron and Antonia (Panzera) DeMille. He moved as a child with his family to Long Island. In high school, he played football and ran track.

DeMille spent three years at Hofstra University, then joined the Army and attended Officer Candidate School. He was a First Lieutenant in the United States Army (1966-69) and saw action as an infantry platoon leader with the First Cavalry Division in Vietnam. He was decorated with the Air Medal, Bronze Star, and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry.

DeMille returned to the States and went back to Hofstra University where he received his degree in Political Science and History. He has three children, Lauren, Alexander, and James, and still lives on Long Island.

DeMille's earlier books were NYPD detective novels. His first major novel was By the Rivers of Babylon, published in 1978 and still in print, as are all his succeeding novels. He is a member of The Authors Guild, the Mystery Writers of America, and American Mensa. He holds three honorary doctorates: Doctor of Humane Letters from Hofstra University, Doctor of Literature from Long Island University, and Doctor of Humane Letters from Dowling College.

Nelson DeMille is the author of By the Rivers of Babylon, Cathedral, The Talbot Odyssey, Word of Honor, The Charm School, The Gold Coast, The General's Daughter, Spencerville, Plum Island, The Lion's Game, Up Country, Night Fall, and Wild Fire. He also co-authored Mayday with Thomas Block and has contributed short stories, book reviews, and articles to magazines and newspapers. His newest book, THE GATE HOUSE, is the much-awaited follow-up to his beloved novel The Gold Coast and will be released in October 2008.

Thomas Block, an active senior airline pilot for US Airways, a major U.S. airline, Captain Thomas Block has been a professional pilot for nearly four decades. Block has also had a successful second career as a writer for almost as long. His writing has appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers, including Flying Magazine from 1970 to 1982 (the world's largest circulation aviation publication, where he held the position of Contributing Editor), Plane & Pilot Magazine from 1985 to 1966, and back with Flying Magazine in 1996, where his monthly column continues to appear. He has written on a wide array of subjects, ranging from interviews with top government officials to test and evaluation reports on most everything that flies. He has piloted gliders, single engine light planes, seaplanes, the Goodyear Blimp and large transport jets, to name a few.

Nineteen seventy-nine marked the hardcover release of Block's first novel, Mayday (with his boyhood friend Nelson DeMille), an airplane adventure story which was published in hardback and paperback by Marek/Berkley in the United States and New English Library in England. Mayday was a Literary Guide and Doubleday Bookclub selection. It was then acquired by more than a dozen foreign publishers and achieved bestseller status in many of those countries as well as in the United States and Britain. The film rights to Mayday were also sold, and the novel was updated and released again in paperback by Warner Books in January, 1998.

In 1982, Captain Block's second novel, Orbit, was published in hardback and paperback by Coward, McCann & Geoghegan/Berkley in the United States and by New English Library in England. Orbit, a Literary Guild Bookclub selection, was another airplane adventure story - one that featured the NASA Space Shuttle. Orbit has also been optioned for a movie.

Following those novels were Forced Landing (1983), Airship Nine (1984), Skyfall (1987) and Open Skies (1990). Those novels were also acquired by many publishers throughout the world, with selected titles doing particularly well in individual markets - such as the purchase and production of radio serialization rights on Japanese National Radio for Forced Landing, and the bestseller status of Orbit in Germany. In conjunction with his novels, Block has participated in countless media events throughout the world, including major TV and radio appearances in the United States, England, Scotland, Australia and New Zealand. In addition, he has given a great many newspaper and magazine interviews, and they have been published in more than a dozen languages. As an active airline and general aviation pilot as well as a novelist, and with his ability to speak entertainingly about travel, safety and other issues beyond the novel itself, Captain Block has been able to get additional media attention to his books.

Captain Block is still active with US Airways, as a senior Trans-Atlantic pilot flying wide-body jets to Europe. He has recently begun his return to the field of the adventure novels and has started the first of what he intends to be several additional novels in the high-tech/aviation genre.

Block lives in Daytona Beach, Florida, in the same aviation-oriented community where he has been since 1983.