Martin Hancock

The Flying Machine Martin Hancock

The thing about photography is that, sometimes, it captures an accidental reality that was never the intention of the photographer. The grinning idiot in the background, the unfortunate reflection in a mirror. But what do you do when an old photograph shows something in the background that challenges an accepted truth about history? Fate drops just such a photograph into the lap of a man who already owns another piece of the same jigsaw. Drawn by an increasing obsession to solve the mystery of the old photograph, he unwittingly uncovers a different kind of truth. A truth about what it really means to live in a free democracy, and which has been active for a hundred and fifty years: a truth that deals in state-sponsored intimidation, blackmail and murder.