Fifty years later the report of a brutal murder which Maurie saw in the local newspaper brought the past rushing back to them.

Runaway by Peter May | Waterstones

But I understood my limitations, and appreciated that there were so many better musicians around than me, so that when I made my career choices, writing was the thing I was best at, and probably most wanted to do. Indeed, the tension in the story is generated more through rifts in the group and between family members than by sinister elements in the plot. To my mind, the actual crime element of this book was completely over-ridden by this strong characterisation and the examination of the impetuousness of youth, and the stoicism of age that so dominates the plot. I remember my first visit to Glasgow and the awful sight of the old housing areas mingled with industry being torn down to make access for new motorways in the city.May gives the reader some marvellous prose and his descriptions are beautifully evocative: “…I grew up in Glasgow in the fifties and sixties, two decades that morphed from sepia to psychedelic before my very eyes as I segued from childhood to adolescence” is one example. I didn’t run away but spent a few years in England, another few in Holland and then flitted to Canberra, Australia with my husband and three, then, small children.

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

The adventure and misadventure; the fun and panic-filled adrenalin that those five young friends discovered o We'd both had long hair, and I can remember the collective intake of breath at school assembly the morning we turned up with our heads cropped! Although I also believe the same can be said for many regions of England, and I am very much in favour of a federal solution to a political problem that is denying democracy and creating apathy in the population for the whole political process. He has read about the murder in a newspaper and demands that the two old friends and former band mates, Jack and Dave, help get him back to London, as he has some unfinished business connected with the murder relating back 50 years to their time in London.Peter May is adept at bringing his characters to life and adding lots of local colour and ambience to the settings. While they reminisce their brief but intense experiences on the road so long ago, the mystery of what happened to their tight group will be revealed. I worked for a planning consultant in the 1960s and we frequently represented public groups (rate payers associations or housing waiting list groups) against local council’s attempts to erect yet more tower blocks or large developments of flats. On the way they managed to get Maurie’s cousin, Rachel, out of a very bad situation, one that would have far reaching consequences, especially for Maurie and Jack. But looking back, I don’t think I would change a thing - unlike some of the characters in the book whose lives are blighted by disillusion and regret.

Runaway | Peter May Author

Margaret Campbell is heartbroken when Li Yan chooses his career over her, she once again teams up with him when the fourth of a series of ritualized beheadings involves an American citizen in the second novel of this series, The Fourth Sacrifice. Evocative descriptions of 60s London with its colourful vibrancy and the exuberance and single mindedness of youth, contrasts sharply with the disenchantment of lives that didn’t meet expectations. A cracking read, I have recommended it to my husband and I’m sure he will enjoy it as much as I did. You don’t want to be looking back on it fifty years from now and wishing you’d done things differently. 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.Laing was something of a media celebrity himself, controversial in his theories and treatments, and was in many ways a quintessential product of that decade. I’ve always admired his writing, but this book was a great novel, as well as a crime book that took the genre to a new level. The Lewis Man was winner of the Prix des Lecteurs at the Les Ancres Noires book festival, Le Havre in the 2012 Prix Ancres Noires. The final straw for young seventeen year old teenager Jack MacKay was his expulsion from school after a particular incident at a school dance. This extraordinary work by Peter May explores how aspirations and expectations shape us, and the pivotal yet changeable role that friendships play in our lives.