By R.J. Dearden
I had the idea for The Realignment Case in Geneva on an unofficial, access all areas, tour of the United Nations with a friend who worked there. After passing by sleeping diplomats, peering in on hushed meetings and rearranging the country tags in the black conference room, I started imagining what would happen if I invented my own secret organisation; what sort of people would work there and what they would get up to? What if they had a powerful machine that could change the world, what they might do with that power? The Department in the novel is a mix of the UN, CERN and FIFA. Like one of those organisations it is riddled with corruption, like another, it is full of good intentions, and like another, it is stuffed full of brilliant scientists. My friend shared inside gossip about what one diplomat really put in his diplomatic pouch; it’s surprising how much made it into the novel! In the end we eavesdropped on one meeting too many and got pursued down the corridor by security.
The novel is about time manipulation. Christmas 2012, the protagonist – Daniel Athley – is a young lawyer in disgrace who takes a job in Geneva and the story kicks off from there. Sensitive readers should be warned there is a grisly murder in Chapter One and we learn far more about the victim and murderer later on.
I work as IT Project Manager in the City. A proportion of my week is discussing bleeding edge technology with top consultants. Like my main character, I sometimes struggle to keep up! I
live in Whitstable with my Irish Cambodian wife – Sonnary – and my son Finlay. I’m a member of a writing group. I try not to annoy my fellow commuters with key thumping on the train.
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With a tagline 'should the dead stay dead,' you have to wonder what kind of secret organisation R.J. Dearden came up with. If you want to find out how that idea works out in the book,
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