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Title details for You Could Do Something Amazing with Your Life [You Are Raoul Moat] by Andrew Hankinson - Wait list

You Could Do Something Amazing with Your Life [You Are Raoul Moat]

by Andrew Hankinson
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Winner of the CWA Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction and a Northern Writers Award

These are the last days of Raoul Moat.

Raoul Moat was the fugitive Geordie bodybuilder-mechanic who became notorious one hot July week when, after killing his ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend, shooting her in the stomach, and blinding a policeman, he disappeared into the woods of Northumberland, evading discovery for seven days — even after TV tracker Ray Mears was employed by the police to find him. Eventually, cornered by the police, Moat shot himself.

Andrew Hankinson, a journalist from Newcastle, re-tells Moat's story using Moat's words, and those of the state services which engaged with him, bringing the reader disarmingly close at all times to the mind of Moat. It is a reading experience unrelieved by authorial distance or expert interpretation. The narrative Hankinson has woven is entirely compelling, even if Moat's weaknesses are never far from sight, requiring the reader to work out where he or she should stand.

PRAISE FOR ANDREW HANKINSON

'A claustrophobic true-crime account in the tradition of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood ... [Hankinson's] purpose is to show Moat as a product of our culture and society ... Moat is presented as an intriguing case study in disintegration, making bad choices then devoting all his intelligence to justifying them in his own head.' The Guardian

'A powerful portrayal of the banality of violence ... a trigger finger of a book: taut, tense, and on edge.' The Sunday Times

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    February 11, 2016

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781925113754
      • File size: 308 KB

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781925113754
      • File size: 308 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Kirkus

      February 1, 2018
      A British journalist probes the troubled psyche of a notorious killer.In his first book, Hankinson takes great formal risks in presenting a story that might sustain suspense for American readers but is well-known in Britain from saturation newspaper coverage and previous books. The subject is the last week or so in the life of Raoul Moat, a period in which he was released from prison and proceeded to gun down the new boyfriend of his former girlfriend as well as wounding her and a police officer. Moat then proceeded to hide out with two friends whom he termed hostages but who were subsequently convicted as accomplices. The tick-tock narrative is written in both the present tense and the second person, meaning that Moat is the "you" addressed by the author. Thus, readers get inside the head of the murderer, thinking his thoughts and explaining his motivations. The approach may well cultivate even more empathy than a more common first-person narrative, but readers will hardly feel comfortable in Moat's skin. Obsession leads to plenty of repetition, as he rants about how this is as much his former girlfriend's fault: for betraying him and shunning him and mocking him and ultimately for costing another man his life by lying about him. Paranoia runs rampant throughout, as police are out to get him when he has done nothing wrong, psychiatry fails him (though he often fails to keep appointments), and social workers are "witches." The context provided by Hankinson, particularly following Moat's death, goes a long way toward showing how much of this tragedy could have been prevented, how the police failed the victims and social services failed the troubled killer, and how a disturbed mother and a troubled childhood had left Moat marked. Ultimately, though, putting both the narrative and readers inside the head of the subject is a gamble that meets with mixed success.True crime from a radically different perspective.

      COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Formats

  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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