Runaway

by Peter May Narrated by Peter Forbes

Overview

"MAY IS GOING FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH... A WONDERFUL EXHIBITION OF JUST HOW GOOD MAY CAN BE." --The Daily Mail

"Five of us had run away that fateful night just over a month before. Only three of us would be going home. And nothing, nothing would ever be the same again."

Glasgow, 1965. Headstrong teenager Jack Mackay has just one destination on his mind--London--and successfully convinces his four friends, and fellow bandmates, to join him in abandoning their homes to pursue a goal of musical stardom.

Glasgow, 2015. Jack Mackay, heavy-hearted sixty-seven-year-old is still haunted by what might have been. His recollections of the terrible events that befell him and his friends some fifty years earlier, and how he did not act when it mattered most is a memory he has tried to escape his entire adult life.

London, 2015. A man lies dead in a one-room flat. His killer looks on, remorseless.

What started with five teenagers following a dream five decades before has been transformed over the intervening decades into a waking nightmare that might just consume them all.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

12/14/2015
The scents of regret and squandered promise suffuse this well-crafted crime novel, about a group of senior Glaswegians attempting to make amends for past sins, from May (Entry Island). In 1965, they drove a stolen van to Swinging London to pursue dreams of pop stardom. Fifty years later, a small news item about a murder—of the fugitive prime suspect in a 1965 slaying, himself long presumed dead—draws together the group: the dying disbarred solicitor Maurie and one-time bandmates Jack and Dave (with Jack’s depressed 22-year-old grandson, Ricky, as their driver), who all make a return trip to unmask the real killer. Deftly switching between the present and their previous journey, when the teens stumbled into the epicenter of the London scene as houseguests of well-connected but creepy Dr. Robert, May gradually reveals the expanding ripples of his story and the submerged horrors lying below. Like Ricky, the reader slowly comes to an appreciation of the still-passionate people obscured by old age and infirmity—but it’s a sobering trip not everyone will want to make. (Feb.)

From the Publisher

"Stretching the parameters of the genre, [Runaway] is as much a disquisition on friendship and the fragility of dreams as it is a thriller."—Financial Times

"The book is beautifully written, funny and poignant, and very different from any I have previously read by the versatile Peter May."—Literary Review

"A well-told tale ... The two time streams are woven together skilfully and the book ends with an intensely moving glimmer of renewed hope."—The Spectator

"May is going from strength to strength ... A wonderful exhibition of just how good May can be."—The Daily Mail

"A terrific read suffused with nostalgia and the burden of long suppressed guilt."—The Sunday Times

"An outstanding novel that speaks directly to the little voice within each of us: the voice that in our quieter moments sometimes asks "What if?""—Undiscovered Scotland

"An excellent addition to [May's] multifarious back catalogue... My overarching reaction to this book is one of warmth. I loved the poignancy"—Raven Crime Reads

"A real emotional edge to those regrets"—The Scotsman

"The scents of regret and squandered promise suffuse this well-crafted crime novel, about a group of senior Glaswegians attempting to make amends for past sins."—Publishers Weekly

"For those who remember the Sixties, but aren't sure if they've taken their meds today, this tale of two nostalgia trips is for them; for others, it might seem akin to taking a road trip through unfamiliar terrain with their Uncle Pete, if it's kept in mind that Uncle Pete is a crackerjack storyteller."—Library Journal

Product Details

BN ID:	2940173841964
Publisher:	Hachette Audio
Publication date:	04/05/2016
Edition description:	Unabridged

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