Read A Review:

Well written, clever and full of black wit Escaping Reality is a hard to put down, stylish romp. There are laugh outloud moments, in prison, on the run, and back in prison again, plenty of twists, a compelling cast, an evocative setting, and heartbeating drama. This is the kind of book you can read in a few days or less, and then pick up again for another round, solely for the pleasure of it.

Magdelena Ball


There's a certain Donald Westlake quality to Geoff Nelder's novel. Our hero, Gerry Ricketts has a touch of John Dortmunder about him with the exception that whereas Dortmunder usually did it, Ricketts did not. His imprisonment and subsequent jailbreak and flight across the moors is one of the funniest rollercoaster rides I've ever taken. Nelder's punning is bad enough, but the "naughty bits" will double you over. Incidentally the naughty bits have nothing whatsoever to do with the sheep.
 
You must read the book to find out about the sheep, I'll not breathe a word of it. Rest assured, you'll be behind our lad all the way during his flight for freedom, cheering him on and cringing at the close calls involved. A knee-slapper of the first order and no mistake. Geoff Nelder is a writer to be paid attention to. I did the whole thing in one sitting and was furious when it was done. I wanted to keep reading!

Jessie Lilley Campbell, Editor Mondo Cult

 
If you like your prison escape stories written with ironic humour, your international jewel theft books full of quirky musicians and your librarians sexy, this is the book for you. If you're never considered any of these apparently jarring concepts, now's your chance.
 
Ostensibly a straightforward "I've been framed and I'll prove it" novel, Escaping Reality itself escapes reality and turns into a tour-de-force of plot-twisting, fell-walking, identity-hiding computer-hacking riotous turmoil.
 
As a stiff-necked literary critic might say, it also underlines the existential meretriciousness of solipsism. The rest of us might say that it reaffirms the fact that we are all, ultimately, on our own. But don't let that
get you down - the protagonist (he's no hero!) triumphs, gets his own back to some extent and even manages to have a surprising amount of naughty stuff on the way.
 
The book reads as if it has two parts - the opening mystery/who-dun-it set-up during which you think "That's couldn't have happened" and "That's just unlikely" and the second half - more of a thriller - in which you
see that "Ah! THAT'S how it happened" and "Of course, that makes sense", all laced with quips, humour and an acceptance that bicycles sometimes have minds of their own. The action takes in prison life, what it's like to be a jobbing musician, good cops, bad cops and atmospheric, detail-drenched settings in Cumbria and non-tourist Amsterdam. Any more would give it away, and the plot deserves to be discovered as you read (and re-read, because you just won't get all the darker and complex undertones first time around).
 
Comparisons are invidious - and there's no other book to compare it to, anyway - but imagine an Alistair Maclean novel written by Robert Rankin after looking at too many Salvador Dali paintings on a rollercoaster. Or something like that. 
 
Better still, buy it and read it - you won't be disappointed. But you might wish all librarians were a bit more like Wendy.

Bruce Durie, Director of the Edinburgh Science Festival