The Thin Chain

When a plain white envelope arrives with a Conwy postmark and a photograph of four women in Rhyl, investigator Rhys Maren is drawn into a story that reaches back through his grandmother’s past. The woman waiting for him in Room 7 of the Castle Hotel is Anna Schmidt, daughter of Hilde Schmidt and Tomasz Kovács. She has her father’s papers and one question: what was he really doing during his years working with British radar?

As Rhys examines the records, he finds repeated references to high-altitude contacts marked “research – no file”. His investigation takes him through the thin chain of Britain’s east coast defences and RAF radar stations. A tme when the strange combination of weather, technology and official wording could make something real disappear from the record. Then he reaches 1960 when Tomasz changed and the world around his work changed with him.

Blending historical research with modern investigation, The Thin Chain is a quiet mystery about radar, memory and the fragile records left behind. It asks how much of a person can be recovered from the evidence they leave behind and what happens when the most important part of the story was never written down.