Once again, a standalone thriller on a totally different theme and an opportunity for the reader to experience the author branching out. The challenges facing a group of older Glaswegians looking to relive their youthful adventures sounds like a recipe for yawns, but as this Peter May. all is not as it seems. Whilst some aspects seem too coincidental, for good, or ill, overall it works well. The characters are built nicely, with favourites and villains no doubt, but with something for everyone. An interesting view of London in the late 60s, as viewed many years later, and a reflection on aging, something that comes to all of us.

So far, no Peter May book can compare to the Black House Trilogy.
This one was fine. Old dudes adventure back to a place they were 50 years ago. The narrative weaves through the past and the present, so you don’t know all the pieces until the end. A nice mystery with a bit of fun along the way.

Five friends ran away from Glasgow in 1965, only three returned from London.
An actor is found murdered in his bed. The actor is Simon Flett, who has spent time in prison for a murder committed back then. Someone had removed a tattoo from his arm to disguise his identity.
Marie, is dying but wants his friends to take him back to London to right a wrong from 1965. He says Simon Fleet was innocent and he knows who the murderer is.
He persuades David, Jack and Jack's grandson, Ricky to go with him. They retrace their journey from 50 years ago and on the way lay some ghosts to rest.

the writing is lacking but maybe because i read the translated version?.

In 1965 five teenagers steal a van, leaving their homes in Glasgow and heading to London in pursuit of musical fame and fortune. From the first day, nothing goes well in this stand-alone novel, almost invoking Murphy's law. What could go wrong did go wrong.

Their story unfolds bit by bit. It is now 2015 when one former band member who is dying decides he needs to go back to London to set something right, and asks two former band mates to take him there. These older men along with one reluctant twenty-something grandson have a new set of colorful adventures as they work their way back to the scenes of 1965. Readers will keep pursuing the story just to find out what happened to the missing band members, the people the band encountered in London, and especially the girl who changed their entire journey.

Scottish author Peter May writes in beautiful, evocative language. The suspense is slow, yet intense as he weaves between a pivotal time in musical history and the present. Subtle observations about aging, living with guilt and regret, and the pursuit of love are all present. Only critique is that the main character's wife of 50 years is not especially rewarded for her love and dedication while the 'bad girl' is rewarded. Love Peter May.

Recenzia na blogu http://zelenozeleny.blogspot.sk/2016/08/som-na-uteku-na-uteku-utekam.html

Hit the road, Jack...

When Jack Mackay is expelled from school, he decides to run away to London. He tells his friends, the other four members of the band he plays in, and they decide to go with him – partly to get away from problems in their own lives, and partly to seek fame and fortune. It's 1965, and London is swinging – the place to be for all aspiring musicians. But it's also a place where young people can find themselves manipulated and used, and caught up in events they can't control. And Jack's London adventure ends with a killing. Fifty years on, one of the band members, Maurie, now terminally ill with cancer, reveals that the person everyone thought was the killer was innocent, and that he knows who really did it. He persuades Jack and Dave, the two remaining band members still living in Glasgow, to go back with him to London to put things right while there's still time.

The publicity blurb for the book tells us that parts of the story are based on May's own experiences of running away to London as a teenager. As with his last few books, this one has a double timeline. The story of the '60s London trip is told by Jack in the first-person, while the present day section is third person, though still very firmly from Jack's perspective, and both sections are written in the past tense. Though we know from the beginning that someone is murdered, we don't know who or why until near the end, so this has more of the feel of thriller than a mystery. We also know that Maurie knows whodunit, so there's no investigation element. Instead what we have are two linked but very different stories of the characters heading to London, and the gradual revelation of what happened to the boys in the earlier storyline once they got there.

Both timelines have a great feeling of authenticity and, as always with May, the sense of place is done superbly. I hadn't realised May grew up in the Southside of Glasgow (as did I), but the accuracy with which he describes it suggests he must have done. Although he's writing about a somewhat earlier era than my own, the places, attitudes, language and lifestyle are all spot-on. Spookily so, in fact – I kept finding parts of my own life mirrored in the story and spent much of the early part of the book being reminded of events and places in my own past.

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.

The trip undertaken by the older version of the men in the present day is filled with a mixture of nostalgia and humour. It's through Jack's reminiscences during this trip that we see the earlier story unfold, and see him reassessing with the eyes of experience the risks to which his younger self laid himself open. Gradually we see how his whole life has been affected by the things that happened back then, with this trip giving him a chance for some kind of resolution and even redemption.

The one weakness of the book for me was the crime element itself. The murder and motive for it weren't quite strong enough to justify the lengthy lead-up – in fact, it felt a little as if it had been tacked on to justify the book being classed as a crime novel. The strength of the book is in the relationships between the boys as they face up to the realities of life; and later between the men as they come to terms with the events that had such an impact on each of their lives. The ending felt a little contrived to bring the whole thing to a neat conclusion.

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...

NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Quercus.

www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com