Death Flies East Reviews

Tiresome murder mystery in which the action takes place mainly on a transcontinental flight from California to New York. Rice, a nurse who gets paroled from prison after serving time for a poisoning she did not commit, seeks to clear her name. Based on a tip that the real killer is about to be executed (for a different murder) in Sing Sing, Rice flies to New York to extract a confession before he fries. On the plane she meets a young college instructor, Nagel, who is transporting top-secret armament formulas to Navy headquarters in Washington, D.C. Suddenly, two passengers wind up poisoned, the papers disappear and suspicion falls on the ex-con nurse. With the help of Nagel, Rice is cleared and the papers recovered. The fact that most of the action takes place on an airplane makes this something of a period piece, featuring the amenities, or lack thereof, on a transcontinental flight at what is practically the dawn of air passenger service.