Unravelling secrets, one chilling page at a time.
My debut novel, ‘The Stowaway’, is a spy/crime thriller set in the late 1970s in and around Gibraltar, North Africa and Europe. Follow Greg Blake, a young British soldier who is dragged into smuggling, espionage, and the kind of choices that change a man.
A twist of fate sends an unassuming Greg Blake spiralling into the dark and deadly underworld.
He can trust no one, playing the game is his only chance of survival — caught between Alison’s world of espionage, the pain of giving up on the love of his life back in England, and the smugglers who keep pulling him deeper into their world of murder, rivalries, betrayal and fear.
Inside The Stowaway
Beneath the action, the characters wrestle with emotional and physical pain, loss, and despair. Blake quickly loses his innocence and learns the art of betrayal and manipulation, but his conflicted loyalty — to country, family, lovers, and self — leaves him vulnerable.
Gibraltar to North Africa
Alison is mysterious and morally complicated — seductive, intriguing, and tied to espionage and criminal networks. Melissa, Blake’s girlfriend back in England, comes to Gibraltar looking for him and is pulled into the story. The smugglers and gang leaders force Blake into impossible choices.
Themes
Survival
Under extreme pressure
Innocence
Loss of, in stages
Betrayal
By friends, by systems
Loyalty
Country, family, lovers, self
Coercion
Choices made under threat
Transformation
From soldier to survivor
The instrument is character, and character is fate.
Blake’s arc is the spine: an ordinary soldier in over his head, reshaped one decision at a time.
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The Stowaway debut novel coming soon.
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