Review of ‘Sold A Pup’, by Pat Cunningham

This review is by Julie Bunting, and was published originally in The Peak Advertiser, the Peak District's local free newspaper, and is reproduced with Julie's kind permission.

Sold a Pup is the third title in the four-volume Magnificent Diversion, written by retired Derbyshire pilot Pat Cunningham. We have previously reviewed the first two volumes - The Infinite Reaches and Contact Patrol and it has to be admitted that the cover of the latter was still warm when this reviewer's bedtime reading moving seamlessly onto Sold a Pup. Each volume can be enjoyed as an aviation-cum-romance in its own right but the entire saga has too much depth and action to be left in suspense when one book ends.

Pat Cunningham deals masterfully with appealing to readers of both sexes. One notable lady author commented that she was 'pleasantly wallowing in the love story so it took me by surprise to find that I found the flying sequences equally compelling.' Exactly so.

The man responsible for action on both fronts is Royal Flying Corps pilot Paul Cowley, who does a fair bit of wallowing of his own. Certainly he is entitled to unwind, for Sold a Pup is set on the Western Front in April 1917 - the Pup being an aircraft that needed to prove itself against early misgivings that it was 'inherently weak ... You tried to loop it - and the wings came off.'

So it is that Paul has to contend with flying challenges and frequently horrific outcomes. The inexplicably hostile attitude of his commanding officer, reserved for him alone, adds to the stress. The reason behind this animosity is one of several surprises, not all of which are quite resolved as the saga moves into the next and final volume.

Review by Julie Bunting