Writing Projects

Working from home? No change there then...

How is the writing going?

I have, of late, become a little distracted.  Over Christmas, I discovered I have prostate cancer and recently had my surgery cancelled due to the COVID-19 outbreak - this has somewhat affected my level of focus. But don't worry, prostate cancer is something you usually die with rather than from, so I'm in no imminent danger - it will get sorted when things return to normal.

Cancer aside, I've been exploring new writing projects outside the Shaun Young crime fiction series. There's a collection of short stories linked by a common theme, contemporary thrillers and a near-future science fiction thriller.

Here's a quick resumé of the projects I'm currently working on - some actively, some in fits and starts. I'd love some quick feedback from you all on whether you think they sound interesting, are worth pursuing (or should be shelved) and which one you'd like to see finished first. The voting panels are completely anonymous, so be honest - it will really help me (here are the latest results). Imagine that you're reading the back page blurb for each one - I've started with the next Shaun Young novel.

The Whistle Blower

In 1986, the scorching hot summer filled the beautiful sandy beaches of Hemsby with sunkissed holidaymakers. Little did they know that on the headland just behind them lay the recently buried body of a teenage boy.

Thirty years later, coastal erosion uncovers the shallow grave to reveal the broken remains of the boy and his dog in the garden of Starling Cottage. As Shaun Young and the CID team investigate the lives of past tenants and neighbours, his own tortured childhood is brought to the surface.

As more young bodies are discovered the cold case becomes a hunt for a serial killer. The deeper Young digs, the more lies he reveals - some of which have spanned generations - all while fighting with his demons of his own. The closer he gets to the truth, the more desperate the guilty become to keep their secrets buried.

Desperate enough to start the killing again...

The Three Faces of Roland Hill

Oliver Hill is a loser.

He lost his childhood to an abusive father; his only brother to drugs; his adolescence to petty crime; his soul to the Army; his heart to heartache; his nights to security work and on his fiftieth birthday he finds out he is about to lose his life to cancer.

As Olly prepares to find a porch to curl up under his mother presents him with a short letter and a key his brother Roland sent her before he disappeared thirty years ago.

The key will open many things - a safe deposit box in France; the renewed interest of a drugs cartel in Spain; an unsolved police investigation in England and the lies of a brother believed to be a long time dead. Set upon an epic road trip with a lifelong friend, beset by a growing number of hostile forces, Olly finally realises something.

He desperately wants to win, just once, before he dies.

Don't Dream It's Over

Tamsin Page,  a successful novelist, is currently going through a creative dry spell. Avoiding work, she visits her local café which has recently become something of a second home. She sees a woman remonstrating with the regulars inside then bursts through the entrance knocking Tammi over and stumbling into oncoming traffic in the busy high street.

With the mystery woman in a coma, Tammi finds herself the centre of attention as a witness and then CCTV seems to reveal her in a struggle with the woman outside the café.

As the café locals she once considered friends all turn on her, only one person stands by her. Thom, a resting actor, takes her side and together they try to untangle the web of deceit being spun by the café regulars.

With the police bearing down on her, Tammi must quickly uncover the identity of the woman and what she was doing at the café that day. Only then will she get to the bottom of a real-life mystery which was becoming stranger than any of her novels.

The Reset Paradox

The year is 2032 and Kevin Peterson is terminally ill. 

Peterson recognises the irony in that he is the creator and owner of Eternity plc - a company offering the capture and storage of a person's consciousness to end of life patients. This is currently a one-way process with further development held up by ethics and required changes to the law rather than technological capability. 


The dominance of quantum computing is absolute - integrated circuit PCs are now nothing more than simple calculators and basic operating systems in comparison. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now so advanced that it is critical to almost every business on earth.

Peterson has been involved in some private research into the development of sentient AI using the mapping of his own consciousness as a basis for advanced machine learning. This work is so advanced that he and the machine have perfected a highly unethical reversal process restoring consciousness to lab rats and primates.

They have reached a pivotal moment in time. The man is dying and seeks immortality while the machine is alive in mind alone and wonders about the mortal world. 

There is a deal to be done it would seem - but at what price?

RAD-CON-3

Nas is a self-confessed nerd. He holds a masters degree in machine learning. He has headed up the analytical unit for the counter-terrorism team at MI5 for the past two years. Nas is also a practising Muslim.

Naseer Karimi developed an Artificial Intelligence system that searches social media to identify potential radical convertees to nip them in the bud. These people were labelled as RAD-CON-3.

Amid an investigation into two potential RAD-CON-3 targets - one far right, the other Islamist - a Shia mosque in London is bombed. Both targets seem to be involved in the bombing although they represent seemingly opposing factions.

As the atrocities escalate, some members of Nas's team find it hard to separate the man from his religion and suspicion of him grows in his personal and professional life.

Nas fights against the system and all factions to get to the truth - once he has it, no one believes him. This is no job for a nerd, but it is he alone that must try to avert the most devastating atrocity ever planned on English soil.

The Record Club

In 1988, a group of people set up a record club at work. For just 50p a week members got entry to a rota system to buy an album of their choice and then pass it around for others to listen to and to record onto cassette if they liked it.

The Record Club is a series of 10 stories interlinked by Tracy Chapman's eponymous first album. The album is a Maltese Falcon for the stories - in that there is no real tangible link to the album - it is merely a vehicle to tell the individual character's stories outside of the work setting.

The characters are young and old, immature and wise, washed and unwashed as you would find at any company and out in the world. The culture is specific to 1988 with the morals and fortunes that prevailed at the time -  it was all very Life on Mars.

The last story picks up after the album is found by an ex-member of staff in a charity shop 30 years later. Inside the album sleeve, a list of the members that had listened to it is found complete with their comments. In this last story, we get an update on what happened to the characters over the intervening years, rounding out the storylines nicely.