THE LOW ROAD - Chris Womersley

From the book:  A young petty criminal, Lee, wakes in a seedy motel with a bullet in his side and a suitcase of stolen money, his memory hazy as to how he got there.  Soon he meets Wild, a doctor who is escaping his own disastrous life and the two men set out for the safety of the countryside.  

 

As they flee the city, the develop an uneasy intimacy, inevitably revisiting their pasts even as they desperately seek to evade them.  Lee is haunted by a brief stint in jail, while Wild is on the run from the legacy of medical malpractice.  But Lee and Wild are not alone:  they are pursued through an increasingly alien and gothic landscape by the ageing gangster Josef, who must retrieve the stolen money and deal with Lee to ensure his own survival.  Ultimately, all three men are forced to confront the parts of themselves they sought to outrun.