First Chapter, First Paragraph: Runaway

Published on by Margaret

First chapterEvery Tuesday Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea hosts First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros, where you can share the first paragraph, or a few, of a book you are reading or thinking about reading soon.

Runaway by Peter May is one of the books I’m thinking of reading this month. I’ve read some of his other books, the Lewis Trilogy and Entry Island and thoroughly enjoyed them, real page-turners. So I’m hoping that Runaway will be just as good.

It begins with a Prologue:

London

He wakes in a cold sweat from a dream pervaded by darkness and blood. And after a lifetime of being someone else in another land, he wonders who he is now. This man, who, he knows, is fading all too soon. A life squandered for a love lost. A life that seems to have passed in the blink of an eye.

and moves on to Chapter One in 2015:

Glasgow

Jack stepped down from the bus almost at the end of Battlefield Road and raised his head towards the darkening sky with a sense of foreboding. He took in the brooding silhouette of the smoke-stained Victoria Infirmary that climbed the hill above the field of battle where Mary, Queen of Scots, was once defeated by James VI, and felt as if someone had just walked over his grave.

Now, reading this, I am keen to read on. Flicking through the book I can see that it alternates between 1965 and 2015.

The back cover reveals that in 1965, five teenage friends fled Glasgow for London to pursue their dream of musical stardom. Yet before year’s end three returned, and returned damaged. In 2015, a brutal murder forces those three men, now in their sixties, to journey back to London and finally confront the dark truth they have run from for five decades.

 What do you think?

Would you keep reading?

16 thoughts on “First Chapter, First Paragraph: Runaway”

  4. I like Peter May’s work very much, Margaret. So I admit, I’m biased. Even so, I really hope you’ll enjoy this one.

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  5. Not to be a wet blanket, but I’ve read everything from Peter May, and given 4, 3 and 2 stars…this was almost 2.5, for me. He writes well, of course, but I could not become invested in the characters in this novel. It just fell flat for me to the point of tedium and boredom. I ended up skimming a lot because I did want to know ‘whodunnit’. Many folks thought it was great, so I seem to be a minority!

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  7. Oh, I love Peter May’s books or at least I’ve loved the ones I read. Yes, I’d keep reading. I’m not sure I knew about this one. Will be on a search to find it.

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  8. Yes, I would keep reading because I lived in London in the ’60’s and I also know Glasgow. Since the times and territory are familiar to me I would like to see how the story unfolds. (Could be rather grim!)

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