This book was one of two apparently inspired the movie The Towering Inferno, in this book there is someone who gains access to the building to try and sabotage it but like the film the electric work being done was changed from the spec and replaced with lesser quality cables once the person sabotages the system it causes a fire in the tower.

And what follows is the rescue effort.

This book inspired part of a great movie. Well I guess that depends on your definition of great but I consider anything that puts Paul Newman and Steve McQueen on the same screen to be a work of art so yeah, there's that...

So the book, oh geeze where do I start on this thing? For one thing it just isn't that damn good. If the story in this book were any more transparent it would be hard to read it because you'd be able to look right through the page, nothing is a surprise. It tries hard to build tension but it's pretty hard to reach a climax when you know where everything is headed. The story just sort of grinds along towards the end point you can already see in the distance; the only question is how, exactly, it will get there.

It is also a mashed up shit-show of ideas, concepts and crap the author wants to say about just about everything. He comments on sexuality, fidelity, politics, publishing, womens lib and just about anything else he had an opinion on. Had he cut some of the commentary and replaced it with actual plot points this might have been a better book.

Definitely the lesser of the burning skyscraper novels

This book describes in a fictional way exactly why the twin towers came crashing down on 9/11. The problems encountered in this plot are thinly disguised criticisms of new building tecghniques used in creation of the then new World Trade Towers. We are now living the mornings after.

Not gonna lie, I bought it for the cover. Which....when I saw I was all