BORDER RUN
Bored of the 'mango smoothie' trail and keen to spice up their Facebook albums, and maybe their sex lives, Jake and Will take a tour into China's jungle borderland with Burma. Their guide has his own agenda and gradually the two gap-year students slip into a nightmarish spiral of murder and moral decay; their chance of survival determined by a game of hide and seek played out with deadly crossbows.
A fast paced, adrenaline ride of a novel: Deliverance meets Lord of the Flies.
UK
USA
France
Need experience on your Gap Year? Try murder.
Border Run was written after a long run of screenplays and maybe that shows – it's designed to be tight, tense and contained, with a small cast and few locations.
I wanted to challenge myself to write a book that started at dawn and finished at dusk on the same day.
REVIEWS
“Simon Lewis is a very talented writer because his vivid descriptions of the forest and the antics of three main characters make you feel you are right there with them on the borderland. The fast moving action is a blur of pangolins, penknives, drugs, forest, Jeeps, China, tribal peoples, smugglers, waterfalls and struggling with crossbows.”
— CRIME SCRAPS
“Lewis writes with a subtle comic edge. The pages of this short novel turn so quickly, its dark undertow can sneak up on you. A novel that sets itself apart from most noir fiction with its lighter and looser feel.”
— KIRKUS REVIEWS
“In Lewis’s well-paced, suspenseful stand-alone, two naïve Brits, Will and Jake, who are backpacking in China, venture into a forest near the Burmese border, guided by Howard, a seedy gone-native white guy, in the hope of seeing a picturesque waterfall and meeting tribal girls with no hang-ups about casual sex. Lewis (Bad Traffic) uses initially small but ominous steps to pave this road to a jungle hell. The young men willingly sink into a morass of shifting perceptions and intentions: Howard turns out to be a smuggler or worse, and the girls prove to be pawns in a deadly game. Jake goads Will into once unthinkable acts, tearing their friendship to pieces and trapping them both in a tightening noose of deceit, violence, and homicide. The author shows how easily privileged youths who think they can control their lives can slip into depravity, on a jungle trek that leads them into the very heart of darkness.”
— PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“This intriguing book by Simon Lewis picks you up, takes you running, and doesn’t stop till the end. Full of action and moral choices, you won’t want to pass this up.”
— ABANDON THE CUBE - BOOK BLOG