Fly Away – A Sopwith Jones Adventure by Alan Haller

If you like aviation stories and technological innovation with a love story and plenty of action, this is the novel for you. Ditto if you’re a fan of series novels featuring the same main character, as there are more in the pipeline. Sopwith Jones, named after the famous Worldwar 1 fighter plane, the Sopwith Camel, is an inventor of a solar-powered aeroplane that everyone wants to get their hands on. The baddies include a South African government minister, his cronies, and Al Shabab in northern Mozambique.

To the rescue come the British government—Sopwith is conveniently of Welsh descent— and a beautiful female pilot who falls for Jones, the reticent bachelor whose considerable skills extend beyond the cockpit of his solar-powered plane and into the bedroom.

On the downside, feminists may find the female character — an ace fighter pilot in the British airforce—too hasty to desert her career for the vagaries of love as Mrs Jones. And the portrayal of South Africa as a rogue nation may irk some, but there are plenty of examples in the newspapers to make this characterisation not as far-fetched as it would seem.

More to the point, the portrayal of the British government as an entirely benevolent force willing to marshall its considerable military resources to save our hero and acquire his little plane does stretch the boundaries of credibility. But hey, this is a novel, not an academic journal.

Despite these reservations, the novel has its strong points. It is well-researched with impressive details of aviation and the British military. It is a good light read when more serious books prove too daunting.

Monty Roodt, July 2022

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