Next week, next month, you'll climb aboard that big silvery airliner, perfectly confident that your life is in the hands of professionals. Professional pilots who are overworked and underpaid. Professional air traffic controllers who are stressed beyond belief—and ready to snap.

These are the stories of three Tin Pushers:

The troubled African-American who is starting to see things that aren't there.The burned-out swivelhead whose only true friend is a bottle of booze. And the not-quite young woman who keeps pilots from trading paint...while embarking on an intoxicating romance.

Then there's the private pilot who hides a dark secret that threatens to kill dozens of people. What happens next will have you turning pages.