Review: Escaping Reality

12:38pm Thursday 22nd September 2005

ESCAPING REALITY by Geoff Nelder...

Inspired, according to the author, by the 1960s TV Series "The Fugitive" this story moves at a cracking pace from page one until the end.

Gerry Ricketts, a jobbing musician, is framed as the perpetrator of a jewel robbery and doesn't know why. He is sent to a prison near Hexham from where, with the help of an amorous prison librarian, he escapes determined to find out why and by whom he was framed.

He hides out in Maryport and, with the help of a local drug pusher, starts to put together the jigsaw pieces of the reason why some people want him dead. The trail leads to Amsterdam, Holland, via Grange and Preston then, eventually, back to a high security prison in England where the story comes to a violent conclusion.

With numerous touches of humour and authentic sounding descriptions of the life of a man on the run, always looking over his shoulder, the story keeps the reader's attention from start to finish. There are subtle red herrings also inserted which will keep you trying to guess who the bad guy is right until the end.

Geoff Nelder, a retired teacher, lives in Chester as a self-employed freelance writer. He has had several short stories in print, some of which have won prizes, and has had a book on the local climate in Huddersfield published. He is also the lead scriptwriter for an Internet TV Show. At first glance this would not seem the best preparation for writing this, his first full length piece of fiction to be published. However if he keeps this standard in his next book I feel certain it won't be long before he will find himself on the bookshelves alongside his literary hero Roy Huggins.

Review by New Authors New Reviews volunteer...

Peter Holme