Escape To Redemption by Peter M. Parr

Publisher: Roundfire Books (June 24, 2016)
Category: Mystery/Thriller, Crime, Some Metaphysical
Tour Dates: August/September, 2016
Available in: Print & ebook,  280Pages

Synopsis

“She can hide from the police, but not from her guilt.”

Josie only had the gun to frighten Curtis Rook, but his son disturbed her. One startled reflex and now he’s dead. Josie flees to Poland leaving her boyfriend Snaz to take the rap. A reformed criminal offers her refuge from the police and the chance to begin a new life, but she cannot hide from her guilt. As the stakes rise, Josie begins to realize that only her own forgiveness can set her free.

Fast-paced and original, Peter M. Parr’s contemporary take on Crime and Punishment challenges traditional ideas about guilt and redemption, and the meaning of forgiveness.

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Praise for Escape To Redemption by Peter M. Parr

“…Parr’s superb understanding of the way human beings justify their sins (especially to themselves) make Josie and Snaz utterly convincing and compelling. An engrossing, realistic morality tale.” –Kirkus Reviews

“Gripped from the start, I found Escape To Redemption a real page turner. Peter Parr knows how to create believable modern day characters and conflicts, and never lets up on the tension. This is a book that will appeal to young and old, male and female.” –Mel Menzies, bestselling author, Time to Shine

“What happens when flawed but essentially decent people do something that will haunt them for the rest of their lives? Escape to Redemption is a powerful and insightful story of guilt and forgiveness. Peter Parr has a talent for suspense.- Mike Brooks, author of The Machine Society

“Let me state, very simply, that I loved this book… It is a highly addictive, unique story which raises questions of morality, loyalty and the power of forgiveness. From the outset, you’re thrown into a nail-biting scene.  With twists in the most unexpected of places, I had to remind myself to breathe. … “- Sarah Ryan, Cultured Vultures

Excerpt

The glare of the headlamps reflects in the wet tarmac. They pass Kilburn tube station, an off-licence, a fish-and-chip shop being locked up. Josie can hear her heartbeat above the engine.

How can it be so easy to kill someone? One startled reflex, that was all. Her eyes fix on her hands and she tugs at the fingers of her gloves, at the white cuffs of fur, but the leather seems glued to her skin. She rips them off inside out and tramples them under her feet.

‘Is Rook dead?’ she asks Snaz.

He doesn’t answer though, and when they come to red traffic lights he doesn’t slow down.

‘Stop,’ Josie manages. ‘The cameras!’

From the top deck of a night bus a man looks down at them, and she shields herself from his stare. The signals take forever to change.

She notices a mark on Snaz’s jacket. ‘Your arm.’ She points. Not one stain, but many, spattered all down his sleeve.

Snaz follows her eyes and studies the leather. ‘I can’t see anything.’ He flicks the light switch. ‘Where, Josie, where?’

‘I thought I saw blood. Turn the light off.’

Finally he accelerates and the spots move, shadows cast by drops of water on the windscreen. Outside, a supermarket trolley lies abandoned by the roadside, and signposts point to Hampstead, Finchley Road and the West End.

By a bus shelter Snaz slams on the brakes. Josie pitches forward and catches the dashboard. She isn’t wearing her belt. He launches himself from the car, and for a second she doesn’t know what’s going on until he hunches by the post and is sick.

She leans over to beg him to hurry up and, in the door pocket, spies the gun. Hide it. But where? She glances about the car, opens the glove compartment and remembers too late not to touch the weapon with her hands. There’s nothing to wipe it with. Snaz keeps the BMW like a shrine. She pulls off her scarf and rubs it clean. Holding it, even through the material, makes her whole body crawl. They have to get rid of the gun.

When Snaz sits next to her, his face is alien. Beads of sweat glaze his dark olive skin. ‘I had no other choice,’ he says, in a voice that isn’t his. ‘He saw you kill his son.’

She stutters. ‘No one else was meant to be there. You told me Rook lived alone.’

‘I said we shouldn’t go there, but you didn’t listen to me.’

She has no answer and then he turns away. It’s the worst silence she’s endured since she was three years old, hiding under her bed from the man who was hurting Mummy, and no longer hearing her screams.

Perhaps a minute later, or it may be only seconds, two women step into the street. Arm-in-arm, they cut across the road. One wears a loop of tinsel like a garland round her neck. Josie watches through her fingers, hears the click-clack of their heels as they pass. The sound of their laughter makes her shrink.

When they’ve gone, Snaz touches her arm. ‘It’ll be okay, yeah?’

How can she tell him she’s been seen?

‘If we stick together,’ he adds. She feels his hand shaking and he returns it to the wheel.

Josie watches the drops on the windscreen, the shops lining the street, and all the time knows the man will remember her. He spoke to her right outside the house. All she can think is that she has to get away, immediately, before he goes to the police. ‘Drive,’ she says. ‘Take me home.’

About Peter M. Parr

Peter M. Parr works part-time as a civil servant, which gives him time to indulge his passion for writing. He facilitates workshops to encourage people to reflect on what truly matters. He lives in Hastings, England, overlooking the sea. Escape to Redemption is his first novel.

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