The blockbuster landing at a bookshop near you

The new book by 'Jurassic Park' writer Michael Crichton (left) taps into fears about air safety. Dominic Alexander sneaks a preview

Anticipating the public appetite for monsters and genetic mutation with his book Jurassic Park made Michael Crichton a millionaire; locking into the public fixation with the vexacious issue of sexual harassment with his book Disclosure consolidated him as an industry. Now Crichton, America's most successful, and prescient, novelist is turning his attention to the disquieting subject of air safety.

While America continues to await a verdict on whether the explosion on Flight TWA800, which crashed off Long Island last July with the loss of 230 lives, was due to mechanical failure or a terrorist bomb, Crichton is set to publish a new novel, Air Frame, which hinges on the investigation into an air accident.

Security around Air Frame, to be published simultaneously in America and Britain on 7 December, is tighter than thatfound at most international airports. Crichton himself refused to discuss the book, and his publishers in America and Britain say they are under orders to say nothing. Nonetheless a sketchy plot outline has emerged.

Air Frame tells the story of a passenger aircraft on a flight from Hong Kong to Denver which suddenly and inexplicably goes out of control, bucking into a series of dives which results in the deaths of several passengers. An investigation is launched which threatens to jeopardise a large overseas order for the plane. Will the truth come out, or will there be a commercially expedient cover-up?

The plot sounds uncanny echoes of the speculation surrounding the crash of TWA800. Three months on, investigators have yet to determine whether that crash was caused by a bomb or an electrical failure on the plane, but conspiracy theorists have been quick to point out that it is in the interests of the airline industry to prove the former.

Disney has already bought the film rights to Air Frame for a reported $10m (pounds 6m). The novel is said to bear all the Crichton hallmarks: meticulous research and a gripping narrative. One publishing insider describes it as "the most stunningly commercial novel I've ever read, brilliantly investigated and very pacey".

The IoS has obtained some early chapters. They open with an account of a family caught in the turmoil of a plane spinning out of control: "All over the aircraft, people were screaming, hysterical. There was the sound of shattering glass... The plane went into another steep dive. An elderly Chinese woman slid down the aisle on her back, screaming. A teenage boy followed, tumbling head over heels. Emily looked at Tim, but her husband wasn't in his seat any more. Yellow oxygen masks were dropping, one swinging in front of her face, but she could not reach for it because she was clutching her baby."

Crichton describes the chaos as experienced by the passengers: "Shoes and purses ricocheted across the cabin, clanging and banging; bodies thumped against seats, the floor."

Ironically Crichton's work has sabotaged the plans of thriller writer Philip Kerr - often referred to as "Britain's answer to Michael Crichton" - to write his own screenplay based on an air crash investigation. Kerr, whose two most recent novels, Gridiron and Esau, have both been bought by Hollywood, started his script called Stick Shaker before the TWA crash in July. Robert De Niro has expressed an interest, but it has now been put on hold because of Crichton's book and film. "It's a pity" says Kerr, "but Michael Crichton is a brand name and Hollywood is fixated with him right now."

Crichton's last book, Lost World, is being made into a film by Steven Spielberg and an earlier book, Sphere, is also being filmed.

The launch of Air Frame will be low key - "Michael's a scientist, a doctor, he's not interested in hype" says one publishing insider - but the initial print run in America is two million copies and it is sure to strike a lucrative nerve in a country still obsessed with Flight TWA800.

Next week divers are expected to finish recovering wreckage off Long Island, prior to the search area being scoured by under water "vacuums". The cost of the technical side of the investigation has already risen to $24m- yet investigators have admitted the cause may never be known.

However, anxious air travellers apparently have nothing to fear from Crichton's book. "I used to be a totally neurotic flyer" says one person who has read it "but I feel much more comfortable about it now. It's actually a rather reassuring book."