Everything starts to go horribly wrong for them from the beginning of their road trip. Finally disillusioned, dirty and exhausted, and with very little money, they arrive at their destination. In London their hopes for a music career are dashed and they fall in with people who claim to have connections with the entertainment business. They stay at a place where alcohol and drugs are available. After adventures and misadventures in London, three of the bitterly disappointed young men return to Glasgow. I’ve worked through most of his books now – I have Coffin Road and all except the first of the China Thrillers to catch up on (the list being longer than I’d like) – and I can honestly say I have yet to be disappointed. The Enzo Files weren’t quite what I had been hoping for, yet they were still fun. None of them have managed to live up to the brilliance of the Lewis trilogy, but I’ve still be pleased with them all. With Runaway, we have his usual four-star standard. 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. 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.

Peter May Books | Waterstones Peter May Books | Waterstones

I thoroughly enjoyed Runaway by Scottish author Peter May; my first by this author but most definitely not my last! A gripping crime novel, filled with fast paced, heart thumping tension; plus intrigue, emotional nostalgia and flashes of humour throughout. Told in the two timelines of 1965 and 2015 it worked incredibly well in showing the differences fifty years makes. I have no hesitation in recommending Runaway very highly. 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. 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!

As for being a crime ‘thriller’– I couldn’t have cared less about the initial murder and none of the characters cared about the decades old one, which meant the story was an enjoyable adventure rather than a gripping thriller. That said, I liked the denouement, despite the drop of unnecessary sweetness at the end! Here is the “story behind the story” and how the inspiration for RUNAWAY came from his own experiences… And just for a bit of fun, here is one of the out-takes from our attempt to replicate the original photograph. I don’t know how many dozen pictures we took, but we almost invariably broke down in floods of laughter. How we ever managed to get one with straight faces I will never know.

Peter May Peter May

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 I think that would be a mistake. The 1960s was just a few years away from the end of the worst war in the history of mankind, and the most heinous act of evil perpetrated by the Nazis in the form of the Holocaust. Here they become involved in the experimental treatment of schizophrenics by a celebrity psychiatrist pioneering the use of LSD. This was inspired by the work of RD Laing at the Kingsley Halls in Bow, East London, during the mid-to-late 60s. 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. It was interesting that during my researches into Laing I discovered that my wife had been at school with his son, and that Laing and I had been taught to play piano at the same Glasgow music school. Porém, volvidos 50 anos, dá-se um homicídio que irá ressuscitar o Passado — chegara o momento do inevitável Confronto!... The book is beautifully written, funny and poignant, and very different from any I have previously read by the versatile Peter May”

Even better then 🙂 Ive just started learning to play the guitar, and I’m finding that making music (or an approximation of it, given Im pretty rubbish still!) is very rewarding, even though its only for my ears. For which the world should be truly thankful 🙂 No one can create a more eloquently written suspense novel than Peter May.’ New York Journal of Books I have just finished reading ‘Runaway’ and while I have read counless books over many years I’m struggling to recall feeling so moved. So do you remember where you were 50 years ago? These aging lads do – but they do not seem completely sure of how and why they have gotten to where they are. 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.

Runaway | Peter May Author Runaway | Peter May Author

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... Overall, though, this is an excellent read that convinces me again that May is at his strongest when he's writing about his own native country – his instinctive feel for the places and people is far more convincing than even his best researched books set elsewhere. But perhaps I'm biased...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. Runaway’ is described in the blurb as a crime thriller but is really a road trip adventure that happens to encompass a crime. Nonetheless, I enjoyed it. What’s it about? 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.

Runaway | Peter May Author

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. Yes, that part of Glasgow was stifling, but as by then I had already lived in a fair bit of England and Scotland, I guess I was looking to try to fit in. I now feel it’s a real pity we didn’t get past the lit crit stage.This novel marks something of a change of pace from previous Peter May novels I’ve read. In many ways, the subject matter, social commentary and frequent splashes of humour are more reminiscent of fellow Scot, Christopher Brookmyre: but that’s certainly no bad thing. 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. 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.