Blast from the Past - Ben Elton

I was up ‘til 1:30am last night, finishing off the last hundred or so pages of this book – Blast from the Past by Ben Elton. I have previously read some other of his novels - Stark (years ago) and more recently, Inconceivable (okay) and Dead Famous (very good). I wouldn’t say he is in my list of favourite authors, but he’s worth a read. This book is set over one night, but told over a lot of flashbacks and discussions about previous events. The ‘action’ is quite near the end, most of the novel is taken up with introducing you to the main characters and showing you their views of what has happened in their lives. Our ...

Jack and Polly are lovers, or at least were back in the good old days. Their love was an incredible, all consuming flame which neither could deny even though they were from opposite ends of the spectrum and the world! The Plot: --------- The brief bit is above, now for the main! The story begins in the world of sleep. Polly is fast asleep in her North London flat with nothing on her mind and a deep sleep passing her through to the morning. The phone rings and it is her ex-lover and heart breaker, Jack Kent, a US soldier in town for a while. She could not be more shocked. Polly works for Camden council and one of her cases was ...

When Polly’s phone rings at 2.15am she knows something is wrong. When the phone rings at that time of night, it’s not usually good news, and for Polly, she has become used to calls at these times of night, from her stalker, Peter, who continues to pursue her despite a restraining order placed on him by the courts. Like she does every other time, she waits for the answering machine to take the call, waiting to hear him abusing her privacy. However, this time it isn’t Peter on the other end, but some one that invokes equal amounts of emotion, but of a different kind. The voice on the other end is that of Jack, an American soldier she had ...