I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. I tried this book when I first downloaded it and then tried the print version when it came out, but really struggled with this book. I thought that it would be more about the plane crash and how and why it happened but instead, it was all about the middle east and the oil line. In the end, I did not finish it.

this was a really interesting read, I really thought this was well done and enjoyed the history of the book.

In the "Crash of Flight 3804" Charlotte Dennett uses the mystery surrounding the death in 1947 of her father Daniel as a basis to examine and investigate the role that Big Oil has played in the post war turbulent history of the Middle East.
A region that has suffered destabilising political interference and endless wars.

Daniel Dennett was an American master spy who was sent to Saudi Arabia to study the route of the proposed Trans-Arabian Pipeline. A project that would see supposed war time allies in a covert battle to gain dominance in the Middle East.

Dennett's subsequent death on a flight to Ethiopia remained a source of speculation and mystery.

Here, journalist Charlotte Dennett, through the use of both maps and narrative, charts how the interest of the oil industry and oil wealth have subverted and destabilised, leading to wars faught and interventions made on phony pretexts.
In the course of this some strange alliances and negotiations have been made and carried out.

This is a murky and complex story but by the end, the reader may well view their previously held views in a different light.

This is essentially a great piece of investigative reporting that shines a light on something that powerful interests will do everything to remain hidden.

Well worth a read if you are one that questions and does not believe everything that the media tells you.

I think the issue with this book is that it has been somewhat mismarketed. From what I have read (and I did DNF the book) the book appears to be a well-written book with quality political commentary, and the maps in the book are helpful and clear. However, this is not quite the book I signed up for, and is not really a story of political conspiracy regarding her father's crash. Much of the book is commentary on American interest in the Middle East, and is not quite the story I was hoping it would be.

If you are interested in progressive commentary on American international relations and politics, then I think this might be a great book for you. For me, though, I did not finish this book and could not get into the content.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me an advanced review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! I just wish I had enjoyed it more.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a free e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The crash of Flight 3804 happened on March 20th, 1947. The father of the author was on board; she was 6 weeks old. She would never get to know her father.
It turns out that her father, Daniel Dennett II, was an intelligence agent for the United States government, working largely in the Middle East. The author believes that this flight was targeted because of who was on board: her father, along with 5 other US delegates monitoring the country's oil interests. The crash happened in Dessie, Ethiopia, on the way to Addis Ababa. This area was becoming of particular interest to the US for oil.

When I requested this book from Netgalley, I was expecting something very different than what I got. I thought it was going to be about a daughter finding out about her father through stories from his surviving colleagues, and her ultimately unravelling the mystery of why the plane crash happened. That isn't really what this book was, though.

I understand that getting information, even declassified information, from the government would be quite difficult. And I can imagine that a lot of people are still interested in keeping the cause of this plane crash a secret. But she never really got into the why. Even when explaining her father's seemingly extensive role in the Middle East, she wasn't able to articulate very well to an outsider WHY he was important. I feel like this book was lacking so much information about the actual plane crash that it seems it shouldn't have been published until that was fleshed out more.
Instead, what the book ended up being was an exhaustive history of the Middle East. It's actually for that reason that I'm giving it 2.5 stars: I learned so much about the the context of Middle Eastern conflicts that I do feel as though I finished this book a more educated person on current affairs.

But this book is called "The Crash of Flight 3804". Besides some explanation at the beginning and then an extensive afterword about a ceremony for her father, this was not about the plane crash. It was a book that educates on US oil interests in the Middle East.

Read this if, like me, you don't have a good understanding about Middle Eastern conflicts and are interested in learning more. Do not pick up this book expecting mystery, spies, and intrigue though.