ESCAPE

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Escape
Frontcover of the Monsoon Books edition of Escape, designed by Sin É Design, photograph copyright©Magnum Photos
Author	David McMillan (smuggler)
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre(s)	True crime, nonfiction
Publisher	Monsoon Books
Publication date	15 May 2007
Media type	Print (Paperback)

Career smuggler David McMillan is arrested in Bangkok’s Chinatown and soon finds himself with other Western inmates among over 6,000 Thai locals in Klong Prem prison on remand for charges linked to an abandoned 200 grams of heroin at the city’s airport. In his narrative, McMillan speaks of the over 180 Europeans and other foreigners from almost every country who expect, and eventually get, sentences of death, life, or between 25 and 50 years’ imprisonment. The stories of these failed smugglers amount to half of the book for little time is spent recounting the usual clichés of the horrors Asian prisons. The balance of the book is taken with the countless plans for the author’s escape, most abandoned as too dangerous or comical but several dropped as many of McMillan’s cellmates withdraw from the schemes as the grisly fates of those who fail are revealed. The style of Escape is closer to that of a novel than a diary or memoir. Although most of the events were reported at the time (in the late 1990s) McMillan has remarked on a Thai blog interview that he wrote Escape in this style, ‘so that each reader may come to know things as I did, suddenly and often mysteriously’. Although he was never caught, several people thought to be McMillan have been mistakenly arrested while passing through Bangkok airport, and it is known that he was briefly held in a Karachi jail some years later following another arrest. Escape is fast-paced with many intriguing characters and McMillan makes no excuses for himself as he uses everything and everyone to gain his freedom while giving much insight into the smuggler’s life.