The Color of A Dog Running Away

by Richard Gwyn Narrated by Robertson Dean

Overview

Lucas, a musician and translator living in Barcelona's Gothic Quarter, comes home one day to find a cryptic invitation. When he appears at the appointed time, he sets in motion a series of bizarre, seemingly interconnected events that disrupt his previously passive existence. He meets the alluring Nuria and they begin an intense love affair. He is approached by a band of Barcelona's mythic roof dwellers and has a run-in with a fire-eating prophet.

But when he and Nuria are kidnapped by a religious cult with roots stretching back to the thirteenth century, Lucas realizes that his life is spinning out of control. The cult's megalomaniac leader, Pontneuf, maintains that Nuria and Lucas are essential to his plan to revive the religion. While Nuria is surprisingly open to Pontneuf and his theories, Lucas is outraged and makes his escape. Back in Barcelona, Lucas wanders the streets in a drug-and-alcohol-induced haze, pining for Nuria and struggling to make sense of what has happened to him.

With the alluring and enchanting Barcelona as a vibrant backdrop, THE COLOR OF A DOG RUNNING AWAY is a love story, tale of adventure, and historical thriller-an unforgettable and mesmerizing novel that will beguile and disturb in equal measure.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171964429
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	03/20/2007
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

1. A POSTCARD

One evening in May as I was walking home, I witnessed a mugging, and did nothing to prevent it. I could see what was going to happen. It was in the Gothic quarter of the city, just off the Ramblas. Ornate lamps lined the street, reminders of a more grandiose era, and narrow lanes led off into labyrinths unvisited by daylight. As I passed the entrance to one such lane, I noticed a pale young man standing there, reptile eyes scanning the human traffic. I slowed my pace.

I had gone barely ten strides when I heard a woman's voice, shouting a single word in shrill English. The man had pounced, and was trying to wrest the shoulder bag from an ash--blonde, sunburnt woman who wore a short pink dress. The bag's strap had become twisted around the woman's arm. The thief kept pulling, the woman stumbled, and as she fell into the road, the bag slipped free. The thief ran back across the street and up the alley, clutching his prize tight against his chest.

This all happened in an instant. I couldn't move.

The woman stayed in the gutter for a few seconds, the pink dress up around her hips. Lying there, half on the sidewalk, half in the road, she looked sad and vulnerable. She was heavily built and her legs were red. Clumsily, she got to her feet, shouting, "Stop the bastard!"

She was looking straight at me.

Fortunately, there was a helpful citizen nearby, quite close to the alleyway. He was youngish, dressed in a lightweight blue suit. He turned and gave chase, disappearing into the darkness, before returning a few seconds later, his arms spread in the Latin gesture of hopeless endeavour. He commiserated briefly with the woman, who understood nothing he said, then shrugged and went on his way.

The woman dusted off her dress with a few angry brushes of the hand. She looked as though she were about to cry. I still hadn't moved. Several other people, who had stopped briefly at the time of the theft in the hope of some excitement, had begun to move on. I was wondering, among other things, what might have been in the bag.

"You could have stopped him. Bastard!" She spewed out the first vowel of that word, as though gagging on a lump of gristle.

It was clear that she was addressing me, but I was unwilling to look up and face her, to respond to this accusation. She was probably right. Had I been able to move, I was the person best placed to detain the thief. I was bigger than he was. I could have tackled him as he sped into the alleyway. Alternatively, I could have tripped him, sent him flying, then strode up and placed my boot on his neck, spat insults in his ear, pummelled him with feet and fists. I could have humiliated and thrashed him, and come away a hero, to be blessed with the gratitude of the sunburnt tourist, the applause of passers--by. The pink woman would have invited me to dinner in her hotel, confiding in me the squalid details of an unhappy marriage, an unsatisfactory job, her decision to strike out on her own, her now--thriving little business in the south--east of England, her trips to what she would call "the Continent." As the evening wore on, the prospect of some drunken sex would have arisen, or worse, become reality. The calm of my life would have been shattered. And for what? A few American Express cheques, a passport, a ticket, a hotel key, a powder puff, a lipstick. Suntan lotion of an overoptimistic factor. Besides, the junkie needed the money more than she did. You just had to look into his eyes.

I stared at the woman in front of me, and to my relief was unable to summon a trace of compassion. My feet came to life and I continued on my way. I did not look back. I continued up...

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