Slaney lay there, flat on his back, chest hammering, looking at the stars. It was as far as he had been from the Springfield penitentiary since the doors of that institution admitted him four years before. It was not far enough. He heaved himself off the ground and started running. It's June 1978 and David Slaney can be sure of only one thing. He can't get caught. Not this time. He's escaped from prison, needs to make good on the drug heist that went wrong, win back the woman he loves and buy himself a new life. First, though, he must travel across a vast country of watchful eyes, booby traps and friends who could be foes - he can't trust anyone, it turns out. And then on to Columbia, where the real test begins. With bravado and the exuberant folly of youth, Slaney embarks on a road trip that will take him from the seedy motels of Nova Scotia to a beach party in Columbia, navigating bad weather and a ferocious storm at sea, undercover cops and gun-toting drug barons. In elegant, forensic prose and a fierce, dry humour, Lisa Moore tightens the net around Slaney in a suspenseful and compulsive adventure story.

Prizes

Shortlisted for Scotiabank Giller Prize 2013.

Lisa Moore's work is passionate, gritty, lucid and beautiful -- Anne Enright Fresh out of jail, Slaney sees the world with pin-bright clarity. As the plot tightens like a pair of pincers, Lisa Moore's prose is worth lingering over -- Janet Davey Moore vividly captures Slaney's youthful hopes and fears... A mesmerising narrative -- David Connett Independent on Sunday In the creation of David Slaney, Lisa Moore brings us an unforgettable character, embodying the exuberance and energy of misspent youth -- Patrick DeWitt, author of The Sisters Brothers Precise, compressed, intimately rhythmic, mesmerizingly smart Globe and Mail

Lisa Moore is the acclaimed author of February, which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, selected as one of The New Yorker's Best Books of the Year, was a Globe and Mail Top 100 Book and winner of Canada Reads 2013. Her short story collection Open was a finalist for the Giller Prize, as was her first novel Alligator, which went on to win the Commonwealth Fiction Prize for Canada and the Caribbean, and was longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. She lives in St. John's, Newfoundland.