Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Quercus Publishing (2015)
Description
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 what might have been. His recollections of the terrible events that befell him and his friends some fifty years earlier, and how he did not act when it mattered most is a memory 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.
User reviews
LibraryThing member smik
The premise of this story is simple: 50 years ago five teenage friends took their band from Glasgow to London, basically running away from home. Months later three of them returned home, their dreams shattered. And now one of them, dying, insists that the truth of what happened then has to be
This story is filled with both poignant and humorous episodes as the three men, and a grandson, help one of them escape from a nursing home, steal a car, and join a pensioners outing, all in an effort to get to London before one of them dies.
Peter Forbes' narration was superb, and the story was excellent.
Peter May is a writer to follow!
Show More
revealed. Things have to be put right.This story is filled with both poignant and humorous episodes as the three men, and a grandson, help one of them escape from a nursing home, steal a car, and join a pensioners outing, all in an effort to get to London before one of them dies.
Peter Forbes' narration was superb, and the story was excellent.
Peter May is a writer to follow!
Show Less
LibraryThing member gmmartz
'Runaway' is a bit of a departure from the thriller/mystery genre that Peter May is so well known for covering. There's still a mystery involved, but it's just one of several sub-plots that makes Runaway an interesting read.
50 years ago, a group of teenagers ran away from their homes in Glasgow
Runaway switches back and forth between the separate trips. Descriptions of 60's London (and the effort it took to get there) are fascinating, and much of the later trip is a nearly comic re-hash of the original. There's a lot of introspection involved on the part of a couple of the characters, and a significant part of the book seems to be concerned with remembrances, recriminations, 'what ifs', and so forth.
I really enjoy Peter May's writing. He's a Scot, and I particularly like his handling of the Scottish version of the English language in the dialogue. His transitioning between the decades is smooth and his prose is superb. He does a fine job developing his characters and the dialogue is very believable. The plot was well done and original-the only issue I had was with the name-dropping in the 60's sections. I know there were a lot of famous folks running around London at that time, but it's a bit jarring to me to have real people showing up in a fictional story. The conclusion is a bit tricky but satisfying.
All-in-all, Runaway is definitely worth a look. It's well-written and set in an interesting milieu, with good dialogue and enough action to keep you going. It's a little sad in parts, but overall a nice read.
50 years ago, a group of teenagers ran away from their homes in Glasgow
Show More
together, headed for London and, in their dreams, rock & roll stardom. 5 decades later, they're back together and intent on making it back to the big city to satisfy a dying member of the group's last request. This is where the mystery comes in.... A man was murdered during their original trip to the city, and the dying man wants to bring closure to the issue by identifying the true killer.Runaway switches back and forth between the separate trips. Descriptions of 60's London (and the effort it took to get there) are fascinating, and much of the later trip is a nearly comic re-hash of the original. There's a lot of introspection involved on the part of a couple of the characters, and a significant part of the book seems to be concerned with remembrances, recriminations, 'what ifs', and so forth.
I really enjoy Peter May's writing. He's a Scot, and I particularly like his handling of the Scottish version of the English language in the dialogue. His transitioning between the decades is smooth and his prose is superb. He does a fine job developing his characters and the dialogue is very believable. The plot was well done and original-the only issue I had was with the name-dropping in the 60's sections. I know there were a lot of famous folks running around London at that time, but it's a bit jarring to me to have real people showing up in a fictional story. The conclusion is a bit tricky but satisfying.
All-in-all, Runaway is definitely worth a look. It's well-written and set in an interesting milieu, with good dialogue and enough action to keep you going. It's a little sad in parts, but overall a nice read.
Show Less
LibraryThing member MaggieG13
This book is a must-read for any mystery lover, Anglophile, or Baby Boomer. In addition to having an exciting storyline, it is beautifully written with luscious language: “Moonlight cascaded across black water below us as we drove down into a larger town beyond the village of Threlkeld. Its
The “flight path” refers to the drive that five 17-year-old Glasgow boys, all members of a band “The Shuffle,” take to London. They are on a quest to escape their humdrum so-called lives and find fame and fortune in the UK capital city. Their getaway is precipitated by one of the guitarists, Jack Mackay, being suspended from school. He decides to chuck it all and head south to make a new life of his own. He leaves a note on his pillow for his parents to find the next morning. Soon, all four other band members join the quest. Jeff, the drummer, and the only one of them not in school, manages to procure a van from the car lot where he works. It is big enough to stow their gear in the back and give them space to stretch out.
They are high on the exhilaration of shedding their old lives and parental straight jackets, making music and singing, when they stop at a diner for a meal. Jeff strikes up a conversation and feeling of kinship with a young man at the diner, offers to give him a lift home. Jack objects, having felt “bad vibes” from this stranger but since Jeff is the driver and owner of the van and the stranger has offered them shelter for the night, off they go. It isn’t long before Jack’s perception is proven correct. They are waylaid by the stranger’s cohorts and their money stolen. This is just the beginning of their troubles, though they do manage to reach London.
In the introduction of the novel a murder is described where only the name of the victim, Simon, is revealed. The dialogue makes clear that Simon knows his murderer very well and has been eluding him for decades. Then the focus is shifted to Jack Mackay, now 67 in the year 2015, and carrying a walking stick that he doesn’t really need but has come to accept as an appendage. Jack is taking inventory of his life, feeling the crush of mortality and the bile of regret for letting fear rule his life choices. He determines that he will help Maurie Cohen, The Shuffle’s lead singer, in his dying wish to retrace their “flight path” from 1965 and return to London. All Jack knows is that it has something to do with the one band member they left dead in London 50 years prior. Maurie will tell him nothing else.
After enlisting Dave, the other Shuffle guitarist and now confirmed alcoholic, into joining him on Maurie’s last quest, Jack bullies his grandson Ricky into being their driver. They then contrive to have Ricky impersonate a physician and “liberate” Maurie from his hospital bed. In Ricky’s car, they retrace their 1965 flight path, save for a few improvements in the road system which make the trip much quicker – except for Maurie’s frequent stops to accommodate his bodily reactions to chemotherapy.
May uses the now very popular style of alternating time periods in telling the story, shifting between 1965 and 2015. He does it seamlessly. I found the characters so well developed and the plot advanced so smoothly throughout the chapters in each time period that I couldn’t wait to get back to that year and see what happened next. There are 327 pages in this book and every word thrusts the story forward, reveals more about each character and their environment. May’s writing is so vivid that I could “see” these events in my mind’s eye.
This novel is the product of a man who mastered his craft long ago yet somehow has learned to improve on perfection. About the same age as his protagonists, Peter May has been writing his entire adult life. In addition to many novels, he has written scripts, created and produced drama for UK television. He has awards from America, from the UK, France and is the only Westerner admitted to honorary membership in the Chinese Crime Writers Association.
It is also interesting to note that May did get expelled from school, took a very boring job in a bank and decided one morning to change his life and escape to London. But first he made a trip back to school to tell his best friend Stephen Penn what he was doing. Penn decided to go with him. Their other two band members decided to come along. They packed up the group van and headed for the big city. After a week of arguing and scraping by, they broke up and Penn and May were together for several more days. Finally they called Penn’s uncle in London who drove up, fed them, got them showers and clean clothes, called their fathers and put the boys on a train to Glasgow. Their fathers’ reactions? “Well done, boys, we’re glad you had the courage to come back.”
Runaway has just recently been released in the US, but he already has another novel, Coffin Road, set in the Hebrides, that was released in January in the UK. So, keep an eye out for its US release, or find a pen pal in the UK who will share the book. If you love mysteries and suspense and are not yet acquainted with Peter May, you are cheating yourself and need to correct that deficit immediately. Thanks to Sharon for recommending this very good read! It was a real treat.
Rating: 4.5/5.0.
Show More
street lamps twinkled in the night, light pollution masking the great canopy of the cosmos whose jewelled sky had, until then, sparkled above our flight path.” The “flight path” refers to the drive that five 17-year-old Glasgow boys, all members of a band “The Shuffle,” take to London. They are on a quest to escape their humdrum so-called lives and find fame and fortune in the UK capital city. Their getaway is precipitated by one of the guitarists, Jack Mackay, being suspended from school. He decides to chuck it all and head south to make a new life of his own. He leaves a note on his pillow for his parents to find the next morning. Soon, all four other band members join the quest. Jeff, the drummer, and the only one of them not in school, manages to procure a van from the car lot where he works. It is big enough to stow their gear in the back and give them space to stretch out.
They are high on the exhilaration of shedding their old lives and parental straight jackets, making music and singing, when they stop at a diner for a meal. Jeff strikes up a conversation and feeling of kinship with a young man at the diner, offers to give him a lift home. Jack objects, having felt “bad vibes” from this stranger but since Jeff is the driver and owner of the van and the stranger has offered them shelter for the night, off they go. It isn’t long before Jack’s perception is proven correct. They are waylaid by the stranger’s cohorts and their money stolen. This is just the beginning of their troubles, though they do manage to reach London.
In the introduction of the novel a murder is described where only the name of the victim, Simon, is revealed. The dialogue makes clear that Simon knows his murderer very well and has been eluding him for decades. Then the focus is shifted to Jack Mackay, now 67 in the year 2015, and carrying a walking stick that he doesn’t really need but has come to accept as an appendage. Jack is taking inventory of his life, feeling the crush of mortality and the bile of regret for letting fear rule his life choices. He determines that he will help Maurie Cohen, The Shuffle’s lead singer, in his dying wish to retrace their “flight path” from 1965 and return to London. All Jack knows is that it has something to do with the one band member they left dead in London 50 years prior. Maurie will tell him nothing else.
After enlisting Dave, the other Shuffle guitarist and now confirmed alcoholic, into joining him on Maurie’s last quest, Jack bullies his grandson Ricky into being their driver. They then contrive to have Ricky impersonate a physician and “liberate” Maurie from his hospital bed. In Ricky’s car, they retrace their 1965 flight path, save for a few improvements in the road system which make the trip much quicker – except for Maurie’s frequent stops to accommodate his bodily reactions to chemotherapy.
May uses the now very popular style of alternating time periods in telling the story, shifting between 1965 and 2015. He does it seamlessly. I found the characters so well developed and the plot advanced so smoothly throughout the chapters in each time period that I couldn’t wait to get back to that year and see what happened next. There are 327 pages in this book and every word thrusts the story forward, reveals more about each character and their environment. May’s writing is so vivid that I could “see” these events in my mind’s eye.
This novel is the product of a man who mastered his craft long ago yet somehow has learned to improve on perfection. About the same age as his protagonists, Peter May has been writing his entire adult life. In addition to many novels, he has written scripts, created and produced drama for UK television. He has awards from America, from the UK, France and is the only Westerner admitted to honorary membership in the Chinese Crime Writers Association.
It is also interesting to note that May did get expelled from school, took a very boring job in a bank and decided one morning to change his life and escape to London. But first he made a trip back to school to tell his best friend Stephen Penn what he was doing. Penn decided to go with him. Their other two band members decided to come along. They packed up the group van and headed for the big city. After a week of arguing and scraping by, they broke up and Penn and May were together for several more days. Finally they called Penn’s uncle in London who drove up, fed them, got them showers and clean clothes, called their fathers and put the boys on a train to Glasgow. Their fathers’ reactions? “Well done, boys, we’re glad you had the courage to come back.”
Runaway has just recently been released in the US, but he already has another novel, Coffin Road, set in the Hebrides, that was released in January in the UK. So, keep an eye out for its US release, or find a pen pal in the UK who will share the book. If you love mysteries and suspense and are not yet acquainted with Peter May, you are cheating yourself and need to correct that deficit immediately. Thanks to Sharon for recommending this very good read! It was a real treat.
Rating: 4.5/5.0.
Show Less
LibraryThing member zmagic69
I was led to believe this was a mystery, it's not. It is a of 5 boys growing up in the 60's in Scotland, who are in a band together, one of whom makes a mistake and thinks running off to London to find fame and fortune in the music business will be his salvation. The 5 boys have multiple
50 years later a murder takes place in London and one of the 5 insists that the remaining members join him for a trip back to London.
Yes parts of the book are cliche, and sound like a TV show, no surprise the author wrote or supervised on over 1000 scripts as a writer in Scottish television, but the book is so well written, this can be over looked.
I am tired of books that are told in the past and present, alternating throughout the book but in this case it worked well.
This is not a booming, lots of action type of story, just an extremely well told one, of life, regrets, and growing older.
Show More
misadventures on the way there and add a girl (Rachael) to their group along the way.50 years later a murder takes place in London and one of the 5 insists that the remaining members join him for a trip back to London.
Yes parts of the book are cliche, and sound like a TV show, no surprise the author wrote or supervised on over 1000 scripts as a writer in Scottish television, but the book is so well written, this can be over looked.
I am tired of books that are told in the past and present, alternating throughout the book but in this case it worked well.
This is not a booming, lots of action type of story, just an extremely well told one, of life, regrets, and growing older.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Carol420
Three-quarters of the book is flashback where we learn about the early adventures of Jack and his friends in some detail. It was interesting to learn about the five young boys and why they left London, but it went on a bit too long. They also had numerous alarming and sometimes unbelievable series
Show More
of encounters before getting away. It wasn't the best I have ever read by this author and I read later that it was partly based on real-life experiences by Peter May himself. I gave it 4 stars because overall it was interesting and entertaining by a really top of the line author. Show Less
LibraryThing member AngelaJMaher
The story is split between two timelines; present day, and 50 years ago. Both times feature mostly the same characters, and both are absorbing adventures. It was unclear how it would end, right up to the conclusion. Definitely worth a read!
LibraryThing member brokenangelkisses
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.
'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
-- What's it about? --
In this standalone story set in the 1960s and 2015, Glasgow and London, Peter May introduces us to Jack Mackay, a sixty-seven year old man weighed down by regrets and feeling mildly bitter about living what he considers to be a mediocre life. When Jack is summoned to meet his old pal, Maurie, in the Victoria Infirmary, he is shocked by Maurie's condition, but that shock quickly pales beside his friend's urgent revelation: a three week old murder holds the key to another murder, committed fifty years earlier, and this means they need to runaway to London. Just like they did when they were boys.
Despite his initial reservations, Jack is soon persuaded to leave behind his not especially exciting existence in Glasgow for an adventure to London, and seems to have put about as much thought into this trip as he did when he was seventeen.
-- What's it like? --
Nostalgic. Lightly humorous. Think coming of age story, but also - a coming of old age story. The older Jack is not necessarily much wiser, though he certainly has some lessons to teach his grandson, but he is at least able to recognise the mistakes made in his youth.
I enjoyed the adventures the five young men and the three older men had, though there were elements that felt seriously contrived (of course the young men will just happen to stumble upon an icon or three of the era). The shifts between 1960s London and 2015 London were well handled, with the gradual revelations aiding our growing understanding of the key characters. I like the honesty of the overall story arc. Not all mistakes can be fixed, but life carries on regardless.
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 --
This is a good road trip story and I particularly enjoyed the parallels between the two trips. 'Runaway' provides an interesting glimpse into life in 1960s London and could well serve to remind us all to grasp at life, rather than allowing it to drift by.
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!
'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
Show More
enjoyed it.-- What's it about? --
In this standalone story set in the 1960s and 2015, Glasgow and London, Peter May introduces us to Jack Mackay, a sixty-seven year old man weighed down by regrets and feeling mildly bitter about living what he considers to be a mediocre life. When Jack is summoned to meet his old pal, Maurie, in the Victoria Infirmary, he is shocked by Maurie's condition, but that shock quickly pales beside his friend's urgent revelation: a three week old murder holds the key to another murder, committed fifty years earlier, and this means they need to runaway to London. Just like they did when they were boys.
Despite his initial reservations, Jack is soon persuaded to leave behind his not especially exciting existence in Glasgow for an adventure to London, and seems to have put about as much thought into this trip as he did when he was seventeen.
-- What's it like? --
Nostalgic. Lightly humorous. Think coming of age story, but also - a coming of old age story. The older Jack is not necessarily much wiser, though he certainly has some lessons to teach his grandson, but he is at least able to recognise the mistakes made in his youth.
I enjoyed the adventures the five young men and the three older men had, though there were elements that felt seriously contrived (of course the young men will just happen to stumble upon an icon or three of the era). The shifts between 1960s London and 2015 London were well handled, with the gradual revelations aiding our growing understanding of the key characters. I like the honesty of the overall story arc. Not all mistakes can be fixed, but life carries on regardless.
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 --
This is a good road trip story and I particularly enjoyed the parallels between the two trips. 'Runaway' provides an interesting glimpse into life in 1960s London and could well serve to remind us all to grasp at life, rather than allowing it to drift by.
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!
Show Less
LibraryThing member richardderus
Rating: 3.75* of five
The Publisher Says: "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 has just one destination on his mind--London--and
Glasgow, 2015. Jack Mackay, heavy-hearted sixty-seven-year-old is still haunted by what might have been. His recollections of the terrible events that befell him and his friends some fifty years earlier, and how he did not act when it mattered most is a memory 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.
I RECEIVED AN ARC FROM THE PUBLISHER. IN 2015. AM I EMBARRASSED OR WHAT.
My Review: Aging. Yuck. No one really likes it...prostate pees for men, hot flashes for women, a general sense of "oh why bother" when confronted with la crise du jour...suddenly all those Godard films you watched to impress that cute guy make sense, ennui is one's default state.
But there are a few who, for whatever (usually external) reason, decide that this just Will Not Do. They put on their velcro-close "running shoes" (ha! like they're ever gonna run absent a fire alarm or a closing buffet) and say, "fuck this I'm outta here." In fact there's quite a little subgenre of books about old folk running away: those Swedish ones by that boring man, what was his name, anyway you know the ones I mean; long ago, Paul Gallico wrote one, Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris, and then M from the Bond movies was in that English one set in India...Marigold Something.
We are decidedly not, however, in any of those cute-old-folk entertainments here.
There are secrets in all our pasts. We don't tell others because they're too personal, or too painful, or too embarrassing...rare is the secret, though, that has cost lives in two centuries. Jack Mackay has one of those.
In 1965, Jack and four friends were about to defy the odds and Be Someone. Rise to their personal heights! They had to get the hell away from the dank chains of family, of course, and the mildewy environs of Glasgow. London! Music was happenin' in 1965 London! And they had what it takes, they were going there to build better than their small-time successes.
Tragedy. Humiliation. Homegoing, for some anyway. Jack spends fifty years being, well, nobody and everybody. Mediocre, an almost-was whose life has dragged on and on. Now more changes are being forced on Jack, his awful absence of success is revisiting him with its wet shroudlike envelopment. And suddenly, from the depths of 1965, the Jack of 2015 takes off back to London, his grandson at the wheel, because the siren call of unfinished business is LOUD.
The awful part is that finishing up that business could get people killed. Jack wouldn't be arsed if it was him whose "life" was the only one in danger, but the threat includes his old friends. And his grandson.
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.
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.
I *do* know that, in spite of taking a thoroughly humiliating six years to write this review, I approve of the story, polished and tidied into fiction though it may be.
The Publisher Says: "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 has just one destination on his mind--London--and
Show More
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, heavy-hearted sixty-seven-year-old is still haunted by what might have been. His recollections of the terrible events that befell him and his friends some fifty years earlier, and how he did not act when it mattered most is a memory 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.
I RECEIVED AN ARC FROM THE PUBLISHER. IN 2015. AM I EMBARRASSED OR WHAT.
My Review: Aging. Yuck. No one really likes it...prostate pees for men, hot flashes for women, a general sense of "oh why bother" when confronted with la crise du jour...suddenly all those Godard films you watched to impress that cute guy make sense, ennui is one's default state.
But there are a few who, for whatever (usually external) reason, decide that this just Will Not Do. They put on their velcro-close "running shoes" (ha! like they're ever gonna run absent a fire alarm or a closing buffet) and say, "fuck this I'm outta here." In fact there's quite a little subgenre of books about old folk running away: those Swedish ones by that boring man, what was his name, anyway you know the ones I mean; long ago, Paul Gallico wrote one, Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris, and then M from the Bond movies was in that English one set in India...Marigold Something.
We are decidedly not, however, in any of those cute-old-folk entertainments here.
There are secrets in all our pasts. We don't tell others because they're too personal, or too painful, or too embarrassing...rare is the secret, though, that has cost lives in two centuries. Jack Mackay has one of those.
In 1965, Jack and four friends were about to defy the odds and Be Someone. Rise to their personal heights! They had to get the hell away from the dank chains of family, of course, and the mildewy environs of Glasgow. London! Music was happenin' in 1965 London! And they had what it takes, they were going there to build better than their small-time successes.
Tragedy. Humiliation. Homegoing, for some anyway. Jack spends fifty years being, well, nobody and everybody. Mediocre, an almost-was whose life has dragged on and on. Now more changes are being forced on Jack, his awful absence of success is revisiting him with its wet shroudlike envelopment. And suddenly, from the depths of 1965, the Jack of 2015 takes off back to London, his grandson at the wheel, because the siren call of unfinished business is LOUD.
The awful part is that finishing up that business could get people killed. Jack wouldn't be arsed if it was him whose "life" was the only one in danger, but the threat includes his old friends. And his grandson.
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.
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.
I *do* know that, in spite of taking a thoroughly humiliating six years to write this review, I approve of the story, polished and tidied into fiction though it may be.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Daftboy1
This is an ok easy to read book.
Set in 1965 and also 50 years later 2015.
The main character is Jack he meets up with his old School pals Maurie who is dying of cancer and Dave a bit of an old alcoholic. They with the help of Jacks Grandson Ricky decide to take a trip from Glasgow to London one last
It didn't all go to plan in the 60s and it doesn't really go well for them again.
There a few issues that need to be cleared up. Jack wants some answers.
In 1965 they got involved in some dodgy drugs that was classed as a type of clinic in Bethnal Green.
Jack got involved with Rachel, Maurie's cousin. One of their friends Jeff dies he jumps off a building.
They return to Glasgow and then 50 years later they take the trip to find out what really went on that night. They have a few adventures and mishaps along the way. They manage to confront the old music director who kind of used them in 1965. Maurie shoots him then himself.
At the end of the book Jack gets to meet his long lost daughter he thought Rachel had terminated all those years ago.
OK book.
Set in 1965 and also 50 years later 2015.
The main character is Jack he meets up with his old School pals Maurie who is dying of cancer and Dave a bit of an old alcoholic. They with the help of Jacks Grandson Ricky decide to take a trip from Glasgow to London one last
Show More
time to try and relive 1965 when they were 15 and wanted to seek fame and fortune. It didn't all go to plan in the 60s and it doesn't really go well for them again.
There a few issues that need to be cleared up. Jack wants some answers.
In 1965 they got involved in some dodgy drugs that was classed as a type of clinic in Bethnal Green.
Jack got involved with Rachel, Maurie's cousin. One of their friends Jeff dies he jumps off a building.
They return to Glasgow and then 50 years later they take the trip to find out what really went on that night. They have a few adventures and mishaps along the way. They manage to confront the old music director who kind of used them in 1965. Maurie shoots him then himself.
At the end of the book Jack gets to meet his long lost daughter he thought Rachel had terminated all those years ago.
OK book.
Show Less
Original language
English
Original publication date
2015-01-15
Physical description
432 p.; 5.16 inches
ISBN
9781782062271
Similar in this library
DDC/MDS
| 823.92 |