The Color of A Dog Running Away

By: Richard Gwyn

Narrated by: Robertson Dean

Lucas, a musician and translator living in Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter, comes home one day to find a cryptic invitation. When he appears at the appointed time, he sets in motion a series of bizarre, seemingly interconnected events that disrupt his previously passive existence. He meets the alluring Nuria and they begin an intense love affair. He is approached by a band of Barcelona’s mythic roof dwellers and has a run-in with a fire-eating prophet.

But when he and Nuria are kidnapped by a religious cult with roots stretching back to the thirteenth century, Lucas realizes that his life is spinning out of control. The cult’s megalomaniac leader, Pontneuf, maintains that Nuria and Lucas are essential to his plan to revive the religion. While Nuria is surprisingly open to Pontneuf and his theories, Lucas is outraged and makes his escape. Back in Barcelona, Lucas wanders the streets in a drug-and-alcohol-induced haze, pining for Nuria and struggling to make sense of what has happened to him.

With the alluring and enchanting Barcelona as a vibrant backdrop, THE COLOR OF A DOG RUNNING AWAY is a love story, tale of adventure, and historical thriller–an unforgettable and mesmerizing novel that will beguile and disturb in equal measure.©2005 Richard Gwyn; (P)2007 Books on Tape

Critic reviews

Praise for THE COLOR OF A DOG RUNNING AWAY


“Gywn has written a shadow book, a story that flies from rooftops and burrows into dungeons, as byzantine as Spanish history, as sensuous and unpredictable as a design by Gaudi.”
—Keith Donohue, author of THE STOLEN CHILD

"It had me gripped from the first page. That clear resonant prose has an hypnotic effect. An entertaining story which draws the reader into a startling range of moods—meditative, comic, sexy, suspenseful, always enigmatic—and won't let go precisely because it is so well-written. There's so little fiction about that excites me these days that it's a joy to find a book I couldn't put down."
—Lindsay Clarke, Whitbread Prizewinner, author of THE CHYMICAL WEDDING, THE WAR AT TROY, THE RETURN TO TROY

“Clever, stylish and supremely entertaining . . . this novel offers a feast of sophisticated pleasures and a taste of deeper passions too.”
—The Independent


“The simple, lilting prose…draws the reader deeper and deeper into the story and before you realize, you’re lost in the narrow streets of Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter with only the author’s evocative descriptive prowess to guide you. And guide you he does, with an effortless charm, through a maze of mystery, love, and lies.”—Book and Magazine Collector

“Superior lifestyle porn.”
—The Times (London)

“The best novel of the year.”
—The Bookseller

Colorful Canine

This dream-like, suspenseful novel might make a terrific David Lynch movie. If that's the sort of tale that appeals to you, you'll like this combination of bizarre mystery and romantic quest. The author has wisely grounded the surreal doings in his intimate knowledge of Barcelona, a city that emerges as a character itself. Robertson Dean's narration nicely fits Lucas, the anti-hero at the center of this story, which perhaps owes something to the influence of Haruki Murakami.

A droner

This book just drones on and on. I have never stopped listening to an audiobook, but this one I had to just quit. Perhaps the narrator had something to do with it, his voice just had a depressing monotone, it felt like everything was doom and gloom, even when it wasn't. I just couldn't get into it.