flying under the radar

I took my Kindle on vacation instead of a pile of books. I still prefer the inexpensive Kindle for beaches and suchlike, rather than fussing around with a somewhat heavier and less legible in sunshine iPad.

Amongst the reading material was blogger R.F. McMinn's novel, 'The Obald'.

I enjoyed it. I don't want to give too much away, but there was one of those jolly good plot twists part way through.

The early scenes build up a 1980's London, with a kind of authenticity that suggests it was being written at that time. A few times between reading, I found my mind wandering off to past times and the kind of differences, for example, in the workplace.

I've also recently re-watched 'Life on Mars', which is set in the late 70's, and there's a similar attention to the detail of the time in The Obald. Kind of pubs in the workplace, flexi-time which was like 12 free extra days holiday per year and colourful points about working in the Civil Service of the time. 'No point in using up a sick day when ill' springs to mind.

Add in a few tunnels, some physics mysteries and a bit of love interest, and there's a good basis for the story. As a regular reader of the aforementioned blog, there were also a few references to things that get written about in FAQ too. Baking bread, Pro-tools plug-ins and living in France, illustrate some of the entertaining diversity.

So, yes, I enjoyed it, and only afterwards did I read the addendum that explained some of its background.