Bookshelf

Fake it till you make it, right?

Above the Law

don’t try this at home. If you want to sit back and read how one person reached for the stars, look no further than Above the Law by Thomas Salme and Tom Watt. It’s a real-life Catch Me If You Can-style autobiographical story of Thomas Salme that begins, like many adventures, with an innocent dream: to become a pilot. The way Salme goes about it is, however, something I cannot in good conscience advise. Please remain seated as your “captain” takes you through his adventures of conning his way into the cockpit of commercial jets. Here’s the kicker: he did it all without ever earning a pilot’s certificate. What makes Above the Law so captivating isn’t just the audacity of the con, but the humanity behind it. Salme isn’t painted as a villain; rather, he’s an ambitious dreamer who took one unbelievable shortcut too far. The writing balances suspense and humor, making readers laugh one moment and gasp in disbelief the next. This is less a tale about fraud and more about the lengths people will go to chase their dreams. The book reminds us that confidence can take you high—sometimes 30,000 feet in the air—but integrity is what keeps you safely grounded. A wildly entertaining and thought-provoking read that proves truth can indeed be stranger than fiction.—Paul Hargitt

We struggle to fly

Certamus Volare

Full disclosure: I had to look up the meaning of the Latin phrase certamus volare, which I discovered is “we struggle to fly” also cited as certamous volare, which is “to the stars through difficulties.” Certamus Volare is author Phil Heseltine’s memoir of his more than 30 years in the U.S. Air Force, originally crafted as stories for his daughters that turned into a 325-page autobiography. Heseltine, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel, self-published this personal book as a “gift to his kids, a collection of stories that we never captured, the lessons learned, and a thank you,” he says. “Everything in the book is a story that I’ve told to a person or an audience at some point,” he told the Derby Informer, where he and his family now live in Kansas. Heseltine was a speech writer for Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon from 2007 to 2011. The book begins and ends with stories of Heseltine’s parents; it is deeply heartfelt and reflective. Available on Amazon.
—Julie Summers Walker

Second chances

The Reawakening of Mage Axum

A special agent for the U.S. government and active pilot, Tucker Axum is a surprisingly creative guy, as I learned when he wrote a story for this magazine (“Musings: A Bishop and a Cardinal,” February 2019 AOPA Pilot). And author James Patterson must have thought so too, as Axum co-authored the thriller Cajun Justice with the prolific novelist. But Axum’s own debut novel is wildly creative; The Reawakening of Mage Axum has a World War II soldier lose his life only to inhabit the body of another soldier, all the while knowing he is not the man or body seen by the world. And, to add to the drama, Axum makes the protagonist his own relative. You’ll follow the return of Mage Axum, er, James Karl, stateside to restart his new life as a journalist covering the major events of the United States from 1944 to the Cuban missile crisis and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Remarkably the story ends when he meets…whoops, spoiler alert, his grandson, Tucker Axum….
—JSW