Chase Your Shadow

Guardian's Best Sports Books

SHORTLISTED FOR THE CROSS BRITISH SPORTS BOOK AWARDS 2015

LONGLISTED FOR THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2015



In Chase Your Shadow, journalist and author John Carlin tells the gripping story of Oscar Pistorius's tragic journey from sporting icon to accused murderer.



Before Valentine's Day of 2013, Pistorius was best known as an extraordinary athlete, the 'Blade Runner' who became the first amputee in history to compete in the Olympics. Everything changed after he shot his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp dead in the early hours of 14 February. Overnight, the Olympian's status as a role model was replaced by tales of erratic behaviour and a violent dark side.



With unique access to Pistorius himself, as well as to his friends and family, Carlin paints a portrait of a complex personality, a man whose heroic rise and even more dramatic fall is one of the most remarkable sports stories ever told.



John Carlin grew up in Argentina and in the UK and spent 1989-95 in South Africa as the Independent's correspondent there. He has also lived in Spain, Nicaragua, Mexico and Washington, writing for The Times, the Observer, the Sunday Times, the New York Times, among other papers, and working for the BBC. His previous books include, Playing the Enemy (2008), the basis of the film Invictus, directed by Clint Eastwood, which earned Oscar nominations for both Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman, and Knowing Mandela (2013).



The strength of Carlin's superb book is that it weaves many disparate strands into a humane and sensitive overview of a case that shocked the world... The detail is fascinating... Subtle and wise



Reads like a taut courtroom drama... Vivid, gripping and illuminating... For those in search of a full rendering of the case in all its complexity, Carlin goes a long way to delivering the goods.



Impressively up-to-the-minute... The Pistorius case will continue to divide opinion and Carlin's book is unlikely to be the last word on the matter. But his evident fairness, cool objectivity and robust scepticism will make it a hard act to follow.



Carlin's account is framed by the progress of the Blade Runner's trial, but it's also a de facto biography that exposes his psychological incongruities



The strongest of the accounts... and the best at supplying a context for what unfolded... Carlin, a fine journalist, is clearly aware of the filmic potential of the tale... and his recreation of that Valentine's Day morning has the pace and energy of a movie script



The best account we are likely to get of the tragedy and its aftermath, with proper attention to the role of the remarkable judge