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Runaway
- Narrated by: Peter Forbes
- Length: 10 hrs and 35 mins
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Publisher's Summary
"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."
Glasgow, 1965. Headstrong teenager Jack Mackay cannot allow for even the possibility of a life of predictability and routine. The 17-year-old has just one destination on his mind - London - and successfully convinces his four friends and fellow bandmates to join him in abandoning their homes to pursue a goal of musical stardom.
Glasgow, 2015. Jack Mackay dares not look back on a life of failure and mediocrity. The heavy-hearted 67-year-old is still haunted by what might have been. His recollections of the terrible events that befell him and his friends some 50 years earlier, and how he did not act when it mattered most, are memories he has tried to escape his entire adult life.
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 is a tense crime thriller spanning a half century of friendships solidified and severed, dreams shared and shattered, passions ignited and extinguished, all set against the backdrop of two unique cities at two unique and transformational periods of recent history.
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What the critics say
What listeners say about Runaway
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Lorraine Van Hees
- 2023-01-17
Runaway
Love every book I have read & listen to by Peter May. Having lived in Scotland for part of my life I find that each book I read I am visiting every place again. Looking forward to the next one.
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- Kathy
- 2023-02-07
Great listen
Great storyline, wonderful narration. Do I love Peter May's books or do I love Peter Forbes' narration? It's a toss-up!
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- Jennifer
- 2023-07-13
Big themes
Great story about friendship, youth, love.
I can’t say enough good things about this Peter May novel. And the narration is faultless.
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- DIYer
- 2023-01-23
Outstanding
This is a tremendous story, especially for readers who remember the U.K. of the Swinging Sixties. And the narrator does a top-notch job as well.
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- andrew
- 2020-03-09
Melancholic, regrets, I've had a few.
Contains spoilers.
Wow, dark and depressing rides from Glasgow to London and back twice, once in 1965 and again present day. I found it hard to empathize with any of the main characters here unlike many of Peter May's other stories, they have so many faults. The author's use of pathos is outstanding but then I'm of the same age as Jack (and Peter May) so I get many of the hooks and references. It is a mystery but that aspect of the story almost takes a back seat at times. Runaway is a little different in style from his usual crime puzzles where one is trying to figure it out all the way through to the end.
The narrative certainly takes a while to get going and doesn't immediately seize you by the lapels in the way of the Lewis trilogy. I found some episodes in the famous five's adventures to be rather redundant and unnecessary, for example the account of the Lake District mugging and the tedious bus trip from Leeds to an M1 service station. However, the climactic ending makes it all worth while although it stretches credibility a little. I found the whole "Jobby Jeff" thing extremely irritating and puerile, probably because a Scottish boy in my school used the same expression with the same effect on the rest of the class. It wasn't until the end that I realized this was probably a way for PM to build innocence and vulnerability in that character.
May makes use of alternating first and third person narration, a technique he uses frequently in other books. This lends itself well to the skills of the superb narrator, Peter Forbes who again brings it all to life and makes certain sagging parts less boring (although you can always increase speed to x1.75 in these bits and PF's diction is so good you can hear every word!).
Accounts of the swinging sixties and its music are interesting and populated by composite or pastiche characters based on famous persons of the time. The psychiatrist, JP, is clearly based on Ronnie Laing, the famous Glaswegian anti-psychiatry psychiatrist who did not however take his own life but did have issues with depression and alcohol. The Dr Robert of Kensington character seems to be based on a composite of Robert Fraser , the Beatles and Stones art dealer and friend ,(died from HIV), and Stephen Ward, the society osteopath famed for the Profumo scandal who did take a fatal barbiturate OD.
Overall worth a listen, particularly if you are familiar with the period. Not one of PM's best and certainly has a slightly different pace than the tightly crafted mysteries of Enzo or the Hebrides.
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- JohnS
- 2023-05-08
Ver good story!
Another wonderful book by Peter May and, as usual narrated excellently by Peter Forbes. No hesitation in recommending this book.
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