The very night before he is to marry Rachel, Andy enters into a stupid bet with his fellow underground fanatic Rolf. He is to travel to every underground station in the entire London system within twenty hours, or lose his passport, his honey moon reservations and his tickets to Paris where the wedding is to take place. Reluctantly teaming up with homeless guy Brian, he sets out on a journey all over London, where every little delay is a potential disaster.

This is light and easy lad lit, a la Hornby but less clever. For while the set-up for this book is kind of funny and exciting (and appeals to MY inner nerd, as I flip back to the underground map on the first page, following Andy's journey in detail) there is an implicit weakness in it. There are a lot of underground stations to visit. Which makes for a thick book...all about visiting underground stations. Even though Lowe brings in every single little thing that can go wrong (delays, derailings, bachelor party victims chained to poles, signal errors...) it all pretty quickly feels static and repetitive. All relationships are set from the get-go (Andy thinks this is really stupid, but can't back out, Rachel is bewildered and angry, Brian is a really really nice homeless guy for no paticular reason) and even the slight hint of paranoia Lowe tries to spice things up with (is Rolf really controlling the underground system!?) quicly turns out to be just brain spooks. Everyone is exactly who you thought they'd be.

A quick read, fun at times, but mostly proof that one good idea isn't quite enough. ( )

En spännande reseberättelse genom Londons tunnelbanesystem, lite som "Jorden runt på 80 dagar", men i mindre skala, men med mycket på spel. Intressant och tänkvärd om vad som är viktigt i livet. Rapp och lättläst. ( )

This was a lot better than I thought it was going to be. Quite a pacey read, although the book is about a race against time so that's good. Definitely enjoyable. ( )