Runaway

Product Information

I have just finished reading ‘Runaway’ and while I have read counless books over many years I’m struggling to recall feeling so moved. Regret is such a waste of energy. You can’t undo what’s been done. But every new day offers the chance to shape it in the way you want” The two journeys, 50 years apart, allow May to show the changes across the country in that time, and he does so very well. Both journeys take the form of road-trips, punctuated by accident and disaster, but lifted by a healthy dose of humour. Along the way, the boys rescue Maurie's cousin from her drug-dealing boyfriend and she becomes one of the gang as they finally arrive in London and start looking round for the streets paved with gold. And at first, when they are given lodgings and a job by a man who promises them a chance to cut a demo disc, it looks as though they have landed on their feet. But it's not long before things go wrong and start to spiral out of control. It is astonishing how youthful ignorance can put adversity so easily aside to breed baseless optimism.

Runaway: a high-stakes mystery thriller from the master of Runaway: a high-stakes mystery thriller from the master of

Peter May has done it again. He’s created yet another thrilling read, one that pulls you in from the start until the end. The Aristokats, with Peter May on the left and Stephen Penn on the right, playing in Glasgow aged 13 or 14. Caricatures and lazy stereotypes in the lives of the characters persist throughout the book: the altercation between the main character and his love interest over her use of Heroin and her subsequent, almost effortless, cold turkey; the tripped out kid who thinks he can fly; the improbable job offer; the adoption of the characters into a bohemian collective mere hours after their arrival in London; the abandonment of the Glasgow end of the storyline half way through the book; the arrival of an antagonist out of nowhere to precipitate the event that is presumably the whole point of the story but which feels like an afterthought; and even the denouement, ultimately all ring false. Despite how the mystery aspect was pushed behind the story of life, it was still an interesting mystery. As you worked through the story it became painfully clear how certain things were to end, yet you did not have the specifics. The specifics were what you were holding out for, curious as to exactly what would happen to each of the characters.

Each had their own reason to leave and their experiences test the bonds of friendship, eventually taking a tragic turn. Of the five who left Glasgow, only three will return. For the album cover, Stephen and I tried to replicate a photograph that was taken of us in a photobooth in Euston Station during that fateful trip. We spent our last half crown on it (never dreaming then, that it would end up all over something called the internet nearly half a century later). It’s an interesting comparison. It is easy to imagine that we lived in more innocent times 50 years ago, and that running away from home was not as dangerous then as now. 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.

Runaway: a high-stakes mystery thriller from the master of

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." But... 50 years later, a brutal homicide will unbury that dark period of their Past — it was time for the inevitable confrontation!... Five very young men, disillusioned with life in Glasgow, decide to leave home and seek fame and fortune in London. Just a note left, for unsuspecting parents, to say goodbye.

This was such a joy to read. Peter May captures the essence that was the swinging 60s so perfectly. Add to that the dark underbelly of London of that time and what you have is a compulsive reading experience. The housing around us became more sparse, and up ahead I saw that the street lights came to an abrupt end, leaving only darkness beyond them. Fear sat among us like another passenger. It could only be a matter of time before Andy made his move. Runaway opens in 2015 with a murder in a downmarket room in London. Few would remember the name of the aging victim, former actor, Simon Flet, except Maurie. Fifty years earlier five starry-eyed 17-year-olds playing in a band together, were runaways from Glasgow, following their dream of finding fortune in Swinging Sixties London. But it was a hell of an adventure, and in a way I suppose it was inevitable that, having become a writer, it would one day provide the basis for a story. That story turned out to be Runaway, my latest crime novel. And when I shake my head now in recollection of our stupidity, I also revel in the opportunity that the story gave me to relive a little of my past, playing God with reality and reshaping it in fiction. I’ve read four of Peter May’s novels so far, and enjoyed each one of them. There were a few twists that I didn’t work out in this novel until close to the end: I suspect that I was too busy reading to find out what would happen next rather than paying close attention to the detail.

Runaway | Peter May Author Runaway | Peter May Author

The second journey in 2015 with an ailing Maurie in many ways reflects the first, with flashes of humour and heart-wrenching sadness along the way. But for me it is the quiet achiever, Luke, who silently steals the show. Runaway is told as two parallel stories about the same group of men, as they were in 1965 and as they are in 2015. The parts about the sixties in London were just brilliant with frequent nostalgic mentions of the music and events of the day. I enjoyed all of the characters and felt a little sorry that they had not all had better lives.Porém, volvidos 50 anos, dá-se um homicídio que irá ressuscitar o Passado — chegara o momento do inevitável Confronto!...

Runaway by Peter May | Goodreads Runaway by Peter May | Goodreads

However, 50 years later, the murder of an old man in a seedy London bedsit, makes former vocalist Maurie Cohen, who is dying of cancer, feel compelled to return and confront the ghosts of the past and he persuades his two former bandmates to accompany him. You felt in control of that (dope). But an acid trip seemed random, and utterly dependent on your mood to determine whether it would be a good or bad journey on the road to paradise or psychosis. I have never felt the need to say anything to any author before and don’t really know how or what to say now.I have yet to read Runaway (I look forward to it), but did enjoy your music video with Stephen. I also remember Ian Looker. Is he still in Bristol? – I partly live there these days. With a musician, as it happens! No one can create a more eloquently written suspense novel than Peter May.’ New York Journal of Books Flats that, once renovated, are still lived in today, while those they built to replace them have long since been demolished.