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

by Peter May

Overview

THE 12 MILLION COPY BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE LEWIS TRILOGY, THE ENZO FILES AND THE CHINA THRILLERS

'Peter May is one of the most accomplished novelists writing today' Undiscovered Scotland
'No one can create a more eloquently written suspense novel than Peter May' New York Journal of Books

FIVE DREAMS OF FAME

Glasgow, 1965. Jack Mackay dares not imagine a life of predictability and routine. The headstrong seventeen-year-old has one thing on his mind - London - and successfully convinces his four friends, and fellow band mates, to join him in abandoning their homes to pursue a goal of musical stardom.

FIVE DECADES OF FEAR

Glasgow, 2015. Jack Mackay dares not look back on a life of failure and mediocrity. The heavy-hearted sixty-seven-year old is still haunted by the cruel fate that befell him and his friends some fifty years before, and how he did and did not act when it mattered most - a memory he has run from all his adult life.

London, 2015. A man lies dead in a bedsit. His killer looks on, remorseless. What started with five teenagers five decades before will now be finished.

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Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781784299958
Publisher:	Quercus Publishing
Publication date:	01/15/2015
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	284,246
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Peter May was born and raised in Scotland. He was an award-winning journalist at the age of twenty-one and a published novelist at twenty-six. When his first book was adapted as a major drama series for the BBC, he quit journalism and during the high-octane fifteen years that followed, became one of Scotland's most successful television dramatists. He created three prime-time drama series, presided over two of the highest-rated serials in his homeland as script editor and producer, and worked on more than 1,000 episodes of ratings-topping drama before deciding to leave television to return to his first love, writing novels.

In 2021, he was awarded the CWA Dagger in the Library Award. He has also won several literature awards in France, received the USA's Barry Award for The Blackhouse, the first in his internationally bestselling Lewis Trilogy; and in 2014 was awarded the ITV Specsavers Crime Thriller Book Club Best Read of the Year award for Entry Island. Peter now lives in South-West France with his wife, writer Janice Hally.

Editorial Reviews

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.)

Publishers Weekly

"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

From the Publisher