My feeling is the plot of this novel relies heavily on stories from true crime such as the Ivan Milat murders. Certainly that reinforces in my mind that events such as those described in this piece of fiction can actually happen.

I don't mean to detract from the good job the author has done with plot and with character development. I was struck also by the way the tension ratchets up in the second half of the novel. We know that Sammi is racing against time for her life.

This is an impressive debut title. ( )

There's a lot of crime fiction out there that is all about the investigator and the protagonist, but A TIME TO RUN tips that right on it's ear, setting up a scenario in which an investigator (cop) is the next victim of a mad, dangerous man who makes a sport out of hunting down the women he's abducted.

So, not a book for those readers that find that concept of the randomly selected victim and the barking mad, vicious killer too much. Particularly as this killer is appalling and very clever about it. It's not until a cop goes missing that a very dedicated policewoman sees some connections between her sudden vanishing, and that of a number of other women.

Sammi (Samantha Willis) is a cop who after yet another fight with her boyfriend, huffs off to Brisbane for a night out with a girlfriend. Said girlfriend hooks up, and Sammi goes home on her own, only to be offered a ride, and well, abducted. When she comes to, she's in the bush, and a madman wants her to run so that he can track her, and ultimately kill her. Not realising that his latest victim is a cop, not bargaining on her determination and cleverness.

The author of A TIME TO RUN, J.M. Peace, is a working cop in Queensland, so the procedural and investigation side of this book is spot on, without being bogged down in the sorts of detail that can sometimes plague write what you know scenarios. The pace, on both sides of the coin here, is tight, taut and unrelenting. Sammi's fight to survive in the bush is mirrored exactly by Detective Janine Postlewaite's determination to find her alive come what may. Of course early on there's a slight possibility that Sammi's boyfriend might have had something to do with it, although that's quickly resolved, and the real perpetrator identified. Finding him is another matter altogether, and here the way that the police networks work is used to great effect. There's also more than a hefty hint at the end about the frustration that police feel when the court system sees things in an altogether different light, and no glossing over the after-effects of an ordeal like Sammi's.

Whilst it makes perfect sense that the training police undertake would help a lot maintaining calm, thinking through possiblities, and being physically and mentally able to react when cornered as she was, it would have been perhaps a little more comforting to think that the police investigating would have been as diligent had the abductee been any woman - not just a cop. To be fair though, it was the knowledge of a colleague's personality, and behaviour that rang alarm bells in the first place.

A TIME TO RUN's a debut novel and it's hard to tell if there's a series in the making - around Postlewaite, Willis or both of them somehow, but given the writing style of this author, and her expertise in the field, it will be interesting to see where this goes.

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/review-time-run-jm-peace ( )

It would be impossible for any Australian reader not to think of the backpacker murders when embarking on A TIME TO RUN. But if, like me, you think you are ‘over’ serial killer plots I would urge you to reconsider. It is a seriously good read.

The only thing I didn’t much like about my copy was the blurb but, as is my habit these days, I didn’t read that until I’d finished the book so my reading experience wasn’t spoiled as yours might be if you read it first. The only thing I think you need to know about the story itself is that it involves a young woman, Sammi, who is kidnapped at the end of a night out. We then follow what happens to Sammi in tandem with the unfolding police investigation into her disappearance.

A TIME TO RUN is the most perfectly paced novel I have read in a very long time. Seriously, it’s perfect. There’s not a wasted word, it never drags, action unfolds quickly enough to keep the reader from wanting to put the book down at any point (I gobbled it up in a single sitting) but not so fast that you feel like the author is trying to distract you from some failing of the book. I think I had forgotten the delight of reading a truly well-paced story because it’s a pretty rare thing in these days of endless exposition and unnecessary filler content. The book has half the pages of many modern thrillers but packs twice the dramatic punch.

For those still wary of reading another book about a serial killer perhaps I can put your mind at rest by telling you that this is not one of those books that borders on celebrating the psychopath or turning him into a star. There are, thankfully, no italicised passages of his inner thoughts. Nor is he a genius of such superior intelligence to the plodding coppers that there is doubt he can ever be captured. He is just a man. A rotten-to-the-core man. We see enough of him and his actions to understand this but the book doesn’t wallow in his degrading behaviour and violence. He is not the centre of attention. The real stars of this book are the victim and the policewoman who becomes determined to find her. I particularly liked the fact that Sammi is depicted as being a random victim through no fault of her own – there is no victim blaming here. She’s also pretty darned feisty. Despite her circumstances she finds some inner strength (and a little help from another realm) with which to attempt to outwit her captor but all her actions – her successes, her mistakes and the times when she is sure she will die – are within the bounds of credibility. Janine Postlewaite is the Detective who is alerted early to Sammi’s possible disappearance. She takes speedy action to treat the case seriously – based in part on a previous experience where a delay in starting the process led to a bad outcome for another missing person – and she is persistent and thorough and smart and dedicated. If anyone you loved went missing Janine is the kind of cop you’d pray was assigned to the case.

J.M. Peace has been a police officer in Queensland for 15 years and is still serving. This experience shows, but lightly. By that I mean she hasn’t drowned the story with fascinating but ultimately pointless insider knowledge of ‘the business’ but she has given the story an underlying authenticity. The way that evidence is identified, linkages between disparate pieces of information are made, cooperation between different branches of the police service happens all pass the truthiness test and help the reader become gripped by Sammi’s plight.

So even if the phrase Wolf Creek-style killer turns you off (as it did me when I spied it on the publicity material) I’d recommend setting aside your prejudices and give this book a go. It’s got a great Australian feel to it (so many of the so-called Australian thrillers that pass my eyes make it seem like we are the fifty-somethingth state of America), rips along at just the right pace and if it doesn’t have you sitting on the edge of your seat then there’s something wrong with you, not the book. I notice that in her acknowledgements J.M. Peace thanks her editor and I’ll second that thought. While it’s clear that Peace herself is very talented (this is a debut novel!) it’s also evident that the final product has been carefully crafted from its manuscript stage and when that process is done well it can never be the work of one person. My congratulations and gratitude to everyone involved.

* Copy courtesy of Pan Macmillan Australia *

A Time To Run is a tense crime thriller set in the Queensland bush featuring a cop-turned-victim and a Wolf Creek-style killer.

A Time To Run is a police procedural written by a serving Australian police officer and is a fast-paced novel with action on every page. The events in the book take place over a single weekend and this was such a tight and quick read, I found myself finishing it in record time.

What I enjoyed most of all though was the quick-thinking and problem-solving skills displayed by the victim Sammi. A police officer herself, Sammi is horrified to find herself drugged and kidnapped, but doesn't panic. Instead, she switches on her 'cop senses' and does everything she can think of to stay alive.

Sometimes when I'm reading a crime novel, I think to myself: "oh no, why don't you do this," or "that's stupid, that'll never work." This doesn't happen in A Time To Run, here I was continually thinking: "ohhhh, what a great idea" and "oh, I didn't think of that."

There is a real sense of the Australian outback in the novel and two smart and tough characters to get behind, Sammi and Detective Janine Postlewaite. A Time To Run is a debut novel for J.M. Peace, and fans of the crime and thriller genre will love this Australian offering. ( )