‘This novel is an excellent read. Set in the Brisbane Valley and the prison on St Helena Island in Moreton Bay (mouth of the Brisbane River), it gives a detailed insight into early Australian life and early Australian prison life. The lives of William O’Meally, a prisoner on the island in the 1800s, and Sally Cooper, who is on a day trip to the island in the present time, become subconsciously connected. The story jumps between the 1800s and the present day as they find themselves locked in the struggle to clear William’s name. Despite the complicated plot there is good continuity and flow.
‘In similar style to the X-Files it intrigues the reader with the thought that this could really happen but probably wouldn’t.’
Keith, Garry Allen, 2nd May 1997
‘Anne Infante draws on Queensland’s colonial and convict past to tell a double-stranded story of romance and mystery. Escape from the Past is an imaginative and admirable first step into mainstream fiction for Anne Infante.’
Gold Coast Bulletin, August 23rd 1997
Escape from the Past made it to the Mary Ryan Bookstore’s Best Seller list in October 1997
On the way to the ruins at St Helena, once an island prison for men off the Queensland coast, Sally Cooper browses through a booklet on the island’s dark history. A story on one of the prison’s most famous inmates William O’Meally, sentenced to life imprisonment for manslaughter, captures Sally’s interest. As she reads of William’s several escape attempts and of his suicide by hanging, Sally find herself strangely affected by his photograph; the young man’s hypnotic eyes are filled with intense desperation.
For Sally Cooper past and present are about to fuse. Haunted by William’s peal of innocence, she begins to delve into a mystery that has been buried for a hundred years. Through her freakish connection to the past, where William is living out his last days, Sally is drawn into a race against time. While piecing together the facts regarding William’s sad plight of heartbreak and betrayal, Sally begins to explore her own past lives, to discover the sad truth about her own relationship.
Can she make one final link with the past to disclose the truth about William and clear his name before he is driven to take his own life?