Travelling on the London Underground can, at times and for various reasons, be a daunting experience. Although tube travel tension has been cranked up in music videos – UNKLE’s Be There for example – and films like cult horror Creep, until now a literary equivalent hasn’t existed.
Games designer and writer Jonathan Sims, evidently carrying a taste for the macabre, goes underground with his novel The Burn Line. Set during a scorching hot summer, temperatures on the tube are becoming unbearable as the cost of living crisis hits hard on the streets above. During one morning rush hour, various characters from all walks of life find themselves in the same carriage: a young homeless man begging for money with a plastic cup, a tired tube driver coming off a stressful shift, a civil servant with no job satisfaction and a smug, sharply-dressed city trader. These weary passengers soon find themselves witnesses to something unexpected and shocking that leaves them fighting for their lives.
Sims cleverly sets up a social dilemma: each character comes from different sides of the tracks, with clashing views to match, but now they must work together before they are plucked off on the Central Line. There’s something of a modernised John Wyndham to this novel, with psychological suspense meeting a socially conscious radar. It makes The Burn Line feel all the more frighteningly real – enough to make one take the bus in future.
