Flying Blind

At the start of Hammerman’s middling debut, a Jamaican cab driver named Richard offers teacher Dan Goldberg, who owns a 30-year-old single-engine plane he can scarcely afford, $200,000 to fly from the D.C. area to Miami, Fla., and return on what is clearly a drug run. Dan, who has a shaky marriage, an unstable job, two young daughters, and mounting expenses, accepts, but first Richard has Dan fly him to New Jersey, where they land on a city street, damaging the plane. More trouble ensues, and Dan ends up with bags full of drugs and money and no idea what to do. Later, he gets together with Maria Sanchez, a beautiful businesswoman, who introduces him to wild sex (“My lust, a persistent ember during the previous two days, erupted into flame”), and to a couple of shady characters, who ensure that Dan has little hope of ever resuming his former life. It’s all a bad dream for Dan, who suffers plenty of guilt and punishment for turning his back on his wife and family. Unfortunately, this noirish exercise is also as insubstantial as a dream. (Nov.)