Running Wild

The prologue is told in the voice of the stalker police officer Brad. Brad walks to his car in the rain, wearing stolen plates and planning to dump the gun with his coffee cup somewhere between Dallas and Houston. He feels «lightened»: he has taken his revenge, Carlin is dead. Carlin was his, she tried to run away, this time he caught her. He had no other choice. Nobody can ask him why. This part is very short but sets up all the tension of the book: the man the heroine faces is a murderer who thinks himself in the right.

Chapter 1 opens under the heading «Ten Months Later». Carlin Reed arrives in the half-empty Wyoming town of Battle Ridge in a faded red Subaru. The town is small: its population by the atlas is 2,387, in reality far fewer; many buildings stand empty with «for sale» or «for rent» signs. Carlin has deliberately chosen the smallest of places she might go. She looks for work: she has worked everywhere and learned mowing from YouTube. In her many-pocketed nylon jacket she carries, «in case she must run», an ID card, cash, a disposable phone, a pocket knife, a torch and ibuprofen.

She goes into the café «The Pie Hole». Three cowboys sit at the counter chatting with the beautiful owner Kat in a pink uniform. Carlin immediately checks the exits, doors and windows; she knows she is a stranger. The apple pie has run out, she chooses the cherry-lemon one and is amazed by the taste. The owner Kat Bailey bakes the pies herself and does everything alone. As a kind of test Carlin asks «Do you need any help here?»

Kat takes her on part-time, but Carlin has a condition: cash, off the books, no paperwork. Kat asks «Are you in trouble, or the one making trouble?» Carlin says «I'm the one in trouble; a man problem; a stalker»; she explains why she did not go to the police with «he's a cop himself». Kat says «that changes things» and hires her on the spot. She even gives her a small attic room above the café: a bed, a small kitchen corner, a bathroom and a window facing the mountains. When asked her surname Carlin looks at the ketchup bottle and says «Hunt»; Kat jokes «at least you didn't look at the floor and say your surname was Linoleum». So she becomes «Carlin Hunt» under a false name.

In chapter 2 the café closes and the two women clean together. Kat picks songs on the jukebox, and Carlin wants to tell everything but keeps silent. Kat senses what she will not say and asks no questions: «I know what it is to be afraid of a man. Never again». Then she tells her about the town: the pharmacy, the market, the library (where there are some computers) and advises her to keep away from cowboys: «Cowboys break your heart and leave you in the dust». Carlin feels relaxed but at once reminds herself: relaxing could cost her life.

• The novel is told in third person from the viewpoints of Carlin, Zeke and sometimes Brad, Libby and Kat
• Each chapter is short and brisk, with scenes such as the cafe, the ranch and target practice following one another
• Humour is used heavily (the Flawless White Cake, the biscuit recipes, the matter of the locks), softening the dangerous subject
• The Brad sections are short and frightening; at the end come memoir notes and recipes from the two authors
• In the Turkish translation some sentences are long and complex