Review: Falling Through Clouds by Anna Chilvers ***

Kat, a 22-year-old student, is on a train, making the journey home to Devon for the summer, when she first sets eyes on Gavin, a troubled-looking young man who so intrigues her that she decides to

abandon her accompanying father and his colleague (her secret lover), hopping back into the carriage to follow him to Cornwall, and who knows where.

So Anna Chilvers effectively sets up her modern-day reworking of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the medieval masterpiece of alliterative verse that tells the tale of how Gawain, a knight at Camelot,

accepts the challenge of an unknown huge green man who rides into court and demands that someone chop off his head – a head which, once severed, the green man simply picks up, then orders Gawain to meet him a year later, on the dawn of New Year, at a far-off green chapel, where he will return the gruesome favour.

In this taut contemporary version, Gawain is Gavin, a journalist who has been held captive, with photographer Bertrand, in Iraq, subjected to indescribable physical and psychological torture. Gavin returns with post-traumatic stress; Bertrand is nowhere to be seen.

Falling Through Clouds is tightly and crisply written, with disturbing incidents, such as the hostage scenes, described in bursts of sharp, spare prose.

Unlike its medieval inspiration, there is little room for meandering in this narrative.

Plot and inter-dependent sub-plots are skilfully interwoven – Gavin's quest to deliver a mysterious parcel to Bertrand's brother; Kat's detective-style pursuit of him as he does so; Gavin and Bertrand's

horrific hostage experience; and the ancient, mythical tale of Surcote the lost knight, related by Gavin to Kat in instalments, almost like a bedtime story.

These narrative strands flick neatly back and forth through time and place, although oddly there is little change of pace, virtually no relief from the constant questing and stressing.

In Sir Gawain, the hero rests for three days and nights before his dreaded planned meeting with the Green Knight, taking a break in an enchanting country castle where he is flirted with mercilessly by his host's wife – it's a charming interlude, full of wit, intrigue, frolics and evocative descriptions of soft furnishings and feasting.

The corresponding scenes in Falling Through Clouds don't offer anything like the same degree of humour, beauty and elegiac gentleness, which

is a pity as this could have provided a welcome contrast, certainly to setting descriptions that range from Britain's grotty digs and clubs to Iraq's war zones and hellish hostage cells.

As its cover indicates, Falling Through Clouds is best suited to a young adult audience and, as such, is stands up extremely well on its own.

In fact, it's a better novel if you are not familiar with the work that inspired it.

For, as impressive as it is, this is a book that feels over work-shopped – cleanly and cleverly wrought from sound plot and character,

and its themes of betrayal, honour and redemption, but lacking the eloquence, richness and lyrical magnificence of the original.