THE LIBRARY
A REVIEW BY SARAH BUTLAND
The Confession of D.B. Cooper
T
he name D.B. Cooper may be just as familiar worldwide as the name Ray Burns should be on the North Shore of Nova Scotia. A father, volunteer, husband, full-time employee, part-time writer, and good friend to many, followed his fascination with aviation and D.B. Cooper into an intriguing conversation we can only trust is fiction. For those who are not as familiar with the mystery that is D.B. Cooper, Burns writes a brief history of what has intrigued the public and the FBI who hunted him until 2016 when they had to redirect their resources. Burns, in a recent interview with Jackie Jardine for The Advocate, reveals that this story has nagged him until he got it down on paper. Once you read it, I am sure it will continue to nag at you too, as it’s as believable as it is crazy. The cover, designed by Trenton resident and friend, Kevin Bent, catches your eye immediately and alludes to the mystery of the heist D.B. Cooper successfully pulled off in 1971. With the claim of having a bomb in his briefcase, the demand for four parachutes, and 200,000 dollars in cash. Cooper received all he asked for and released the planes passengers and some of the crew when he landed in Seattle. Then he forced the remaining flight crew to fly to Mexico but, somewhere between Seattle and Nevada, Cooper disappeared. Burns tells the story of one of many possibilities of what happened to lead up to the circumstances and how Cooper masterfully evaded police following his disappearance. A quick read of only 5,000 words, this is a long-lasting tale that, once again, peaks the interest of anyone with a passion for unsolved mysteries as Cooper, if that was his real name, was never found. It gives you one possibility of what may have inspired the mystery and motivates the reader to ponder their own solutions and outcomes. When it is fiction based on a cold case that is such a phenomenon, the stories are endless. Burns wrote his story, The Confession of D.B. Cooper, like an interview, which invites you into the room like the fly on the wall as Cooper reveals his “real” name, why he has kept it a secret, and perhaps most importantly, why an average man took the leap into crime in such a dramatic way. As explained by Burns, D.B. Cooper was the reason airplanes now have added security measures in place so that the same stunt could not be pulled again. While the conversation, story, evidence, and motive may all be fictitious (though no one will really know unless D.B. Cooper does confess) one thing is for absolute certain – Burns is a great writer with a passion for high-flying exploits.
The North Shore
ah! Spring 2021 - 14
