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

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