Runaway

Product Information

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. As a baby boomer in his late teens in 1965 this part of the plot resonated so strongly for me. It so replicated my own life it could have been my biography. But my experience of the 1965s was a lot less traumatic than the young men in this story, I am glad to say.

Peter May Books | Waterstones Peter May Books | Waterstones

Since Author May is a veteran of the TV mills and decades of thriller- and mystery-writing, he's developed that habit of story-telling and be damned if you, reviewer, wish for something a bit more textured, true to life. As this particular novel is a standalone and is based in part on some of the author's own lived experience, well...maybe it's all down to that specialty of the old, the tidying-up of the past. Runaway, when compared to his other books, is slightly less of a mystery. There is still a mystery aspect to the book; however, I felt it was more a tale of growing up. The story of finding yourself. Coming to terms with who you are. Facing your past. In part it was a coming of age novel, yet at the same time it was a reflection of life. It was a great tale of life, bringing about the young and the old to demonstrate how life events can have a lasting impact. No one can create a more eloquently written suspense novel than Peter May.’ New York Journal of BooksRegret 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” 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.

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

Guided by a common dream, 5 boys flee from Glasgow to London. However, less than an year later, 3 of them returned — what happened in London has been buried but not forgotten... Trouble is, most psychiatrists like the sound of their own voices too much, it’s what the patient has to say that’s important. Listening is the virtue. 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. I must say that the indentity of the perpetrator of the coercive and criminal scenarios made all the sense in the world to me, and the nature of the disaster in the past was very deeply sad if not terribly unusual. The pure-D unadulterated Peter-May-ness of the resolution to the disasters past and present stems from his utter, abject inability to leave a thread to dangle. Every last end is tightly bound up.Both timelines have a great feeling of authenticity and, as always with May, the sense of place is done superbly. I hadn't realised May grew up in the Southside of Glasgow (as did I), but the accuracy with which he describes it suggests he must have done. Although he's writing about a somewhat earlier era than my own, the places, attitudes, language and lifestyle are all spot-on. Spookily so, in fact – I kept finding parts of my own life mirrored in the story and spent much of the early part of the book being reminded of events and places in my own past. The period detail was interesting and I found myself researching a few of the topics touched upon to find out more, which I always think is a good sign of an author who has said just enough to interest you in something and not drowned you in their research! Final thoughts 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. Nothing, of course, goes to plan. For all of them this will be a life changing journey. Some will benefit from the journey but some will never recover from it. After a few months of traumatic living in London most of the boys make the decision to return home to Glasgow and their worried parents.