By Graham Hancock

...in which she relives the horrific abuse of her past but also sees a beautiful blue angel who hints at another realm - a kind of interstitial between two places in time - before coming round in a hospital bed. At that moment, 24,000 years in the past, Ria has stood up to the bullies from her clan who are about to kill a lame boy, an 'Ugly', or Neanderthal as we'd call them, and for her troubles is about to be raped and killed by the boys until more Uglies turn up and rescue her. Her experience forms a new 'telepathic' bond between her and the lame Ugly she rescued so she agrees to go to their camp with them before returning to her own clan.

Ria discovers that a huge army of brutal killers under the command of an evil tyrant called Sulpa are sweeping across her lands exterminating all in their path, and her own clan, as well as the Uglies, are next in line. Meanwhile Leoni discovers that a malevolent force of evil named Jack has been responsible for all the horrors of her young life and determines to find out more about him. While she's with the Uglies, Ria partakes of a brew that they use to commune with the Gods and experiences an out-of-body experience of her own where she meets Leoni, briefly, and each girl realises that the evil Sulpa and the malevolent Jack are one and the same, a demon who is determined to use the blood of all the innocents to increase his power and use the in-between realm to cross through time from Ria's world to Leoni's world in an attempt to gain immortality and enslave our world forever. Only these two young girls have the power to stop him and it becomes a race for them to unite across time and space to fight Sulpa/Jack and save the world.

While Graham Hancock is a best-selling author of non-fiction, this is his first novel and he approaches it in much the same way. There's extraordinary attention to detail and logical analyses of the aspects discussed, even going so far as to provide a set of notes outlining his narrative choices and the reasons behind them; it becomes apparent straight away that Hancock doesn't want anyone misunderstanding his intentions. It's a strange approach and a double-edged sword because, while it allows you to read without worrying about the science, it also, in part, takes you out of the story because you get the impression that he wants you to believe the possibilities rather than just enjoy a good yarn, and it is a pretty good yarn.

Entangled hits the ground running with plenty of action, plenty of violence and some pretty weird stuff that hooks you right into the story from the get-go. Ria is feisty, brave, compassionate and immediately likeable while Leoni is shallow, vain and reckless in a way that puts you off her, and while you learn of her childhood abuse, even she isn't sure it actually happened at first so it comes across as an excuse to be a bad girl and get away with it. This changes as the book rolls on and we eventually learn to like both girls for what they bring, individually and collectively to the story. The rest of the characters in the book are fairly well drawn, I think a bit more time was spent on the stone-age rather than the modern-era folk and that shows in the depth they bring as the story unfolds, and hancock doesn't waste time on minor characters either, which is a bit of a shame as those 'cameos' can sometimes be the most interesting.

The book switches back and forward in time quite readily and fairly seamlessly, never leaving you wondering where you are in the 'worlds', and the depth and scope of Hancock's vision very obviously benefits from his many years study of ancient civilisations where the detail in his descriptions of ancient life, the tools, the weapons, the culture make this a lavishly drawn and fascinating tale. But this strength is also one of the major drawbacks. Hancock is prone to overdo the exposition as his characters sit about discussing out-of-body experiences, quantum entanglement, holes in time and space and the theories that underpin this work. While it may be interesting stuff it doesn't make for great reading in fiction and he needs to dial it back or learn to be much cleverer about it if he's to grow his fiction fan base as he has his non-fiction.

There are other small niggles, he has opted for modern vernacular across the board as he believes there's no reason to believe that stone age folk didn't have their own version of our speech but it can be jarring to hear Ria refer to someone as an 'asshole'. He also overdoes the description, adding unnecessary extra detail and the action sequences become repetitive after a while and in some case feel like a skirmish has been added just to end the chapter on another cliff-hanger rather than just let a section come to a natural close. It's fair to say that none of this makes the book unreadable, far from it, but it's a bit "fiction writing 101" and I think Mr. Hancock needs a little boost in confidence to shake it off and let the story unfold a bit more smoothly.

Entangled is a decent action/adventure story that uses the relationship between time and space to good effect making it a bit of a mash-up of alternate history, science fiction and fantasy. It's a tad over-blown, yes and a bit too expository, yes but it's still a decent read and will keep you entertained for a few hours which is what it's meant to do at the end of the day, and it does it pretty well.

Entangled is published by Century through Random House and is available from Play.com, Blackwell and all good book stores.

Graham Hancock has a website.