Hit and Run

The Australian author is widely recognized for novels about people one empathizes with because they are familiar in their human virtues and faults. Constable Gordon Sutton thinks Roland Fleming is a bad boy when he accuses a friend of breaking the window in Mr. Fleming's costly auto. At the same time, the policeman sees that Roland is abnormally afraid of his father, and wonders why. Two years later, Sutton is speeding after Roland, who is driving off in a stolen car after hitting a baby carriage, knocking the baby and its mother to the ground. The constable catches up with the panicked youth in a wilderness far from the city and is escorting him to the police car when he falls and breaks his leg. Turning to look at Sutton, Roland says, ""Now I can get away.'' But this is not what he does, in Phipson's mesmerizing story. As it unfolds, readers come to experience the benefits from the companionship that binds the two in a crucial time. (12up)