The Man In 18-E

by D.L. Hynes, Graeme Parker (Illustrator), Hache L. Jones (Editor)

In 1971, a middle-aged man carrying $200,000 cash (a cool million and a half today) parachuted out of the airplane he’d just politely hijacked.

Then he vanished into thin air, launching the legend of D.B. Cooper.

Feisty but disillusioned with modern-day life, Valerie Valera becomes fascinated and obsessed with the man and all things 70’s, thinking she would give anything to travel back and find out exactly what happened.

Time travel is a funny thing, and some dreams do come true, so when Val, along with her attractive, affable, intriguing neighbour, Marv, are yanked back to just days before the skyjacking, they make it their mission to find out what’s really become of… THE MAN IN 18-E.

This quirky debut time travel novel by D.L. Hynes is an engrossing, humorous adrenaline ride you’ll want to go back and read again and again.

468 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 7, 2019

About the author

Raised in the charmingly chilly town of Wabush, Labrador West amongst its wonderfully warm inhabitants, D.L. has also lived in St. John's and Change Islands, NL, Montreal, Ottawa, Kobe (Japan) , and Vancouver, BC. She has a BA in English Literature and a Graduate Diploma in Communications/Media Studies from Concordia University and a graduate Certificate in TESL from Carleton U. She spent 18+ years teaching ESL in Ottawa, Vancouver and Japan before relocating to "The Hammer". aka Hamilton, Ontario. She is married to David Evans (a much better guitar player than that other David Evans) and they have three cats and some wonderful, supportive friends.

Her first book, The Man in 18-E, was published in December 2019 by (KGHH) Publishing in the UK, later reprinted under Dream's Edge Publishing. It is a time travel fantasy in pursuit of the mysterious real-life historical skyjacker D.B. Cooper, and is the first in a trilogy of time-travel novels involving real historical cold cases.

Reviews

[Kermit · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the book! I was amazed by the accuracy of the events and research that was presented. Her humor and colorful presentation of the styles and language of the 1970 in Portland, Ore where the D B Cooper hyjacking took place was dead on ! I was a resident in Portland for over 50 years and this was a Masterpiece!

[Brian Kupfer · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book could have been SO GOOD.
I wanted it to be good. A combination of two of my favorite genres to read, historical fiction and time travel, should have been amazing.
But the tone, especially early on, was all wrong. It was just so....smarmy. Like it was trying so hard to be hip and just ended up the reading version of nails on a chalkboard.
But that wasn't even the worst part.
The most simple and verifiable facts were wrong. For instance, a Boeing 727 has THREE engines, not two. Important bit of information there that the author missed.....on page one. She then fails over and over again in her time math, talking about a difference of 46 and 47 years....when 1971 to 2019 is quite obviously 48. No matter how you do math.

Then there are the damned FOOTNOTES. Irritating and distracting as hell, and totally unnecessary. The author couldn't go 3 pages without having one. (OK, there was a gap of 9 pages at one point, but that was the longest in the entire novel.)

Also, as an addendum, who doesn't know how to turn off the shutter sound on a cell phone camera when trying to take surreptitious pictures? And how horribly inept do you have to be to not be able to take ONE good one when no one even knows it's a camera?
All these things seem minor but they kept popping me out of the flow of the story, and they ended up adding up to a major irritation with this book.
Overall, I loved the concept.
But the execution of that concept was sorely lacking.
I also wish the listed editor had done their job, as a lot of these issues could have easily been caught before publication.