Where do you draw the line between compassion and the prevention of unchangeable evil?
Theo, Bishop of London, knows the risks of capital punishment. It is rare but possible that someone is hanged for a wrongful conviction. Yet when his own nephew dies in a horrific bomb attack on a London school, he chooses to call for the execution of the murderer responsible.
But then a terrorist takes up Theo’s campaign, promising to detonate bombs in random locations around the capital until the government brings back the death penalty. Suddenly Theo is plunged into a crisis of faith as the Met race to track down this elusive terrorist...
Who is responsible for the gradually rising death toll? The terrorist alone? The government, for not giving in? Or all those who wish to bring back the death penalty...
...including Theo?
These are the questions posed by this truly explosive mystery-suspense-thriller – coming soon from US publisher Inkshares!
Follow the book’s journey to publication here...
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IMPORTANT NOTE: The excerpts currently readable from this webpage are a pre-publication draft, and are unlikely to match the copy you’ll soon be finding in bookshops.
Want to know where the idea came from? Click here – or else, please read on...
What’s that? A terrorist campaigning for the return of the death penalty in the UK? Who would do such a thing, and why?
This idea has fascinated me for a long time (see "How we got here" below) – and now, as Brexit will release the UK from the EU obligation to carry no death sentence, the question is as relevant as ever. But it’s also just as divisive, with a 2009 survey showing 51% of the nation in favour of capital punishment.
So if a repeat offender caused the death of nearly 220 children, would you join a campaign to pressurise the British Government into enacting the ultimate punishment? Even if that campaign was supported by the violence of a serial bomber...?
Ripe For Execution promises to be as compelling a mystery as it is a suspenseful thriller: some of the characters who bring you close to the action are also your prime suspects. Can you unmask the terrorist before the British Government gives in and reintroduces the death penalty?
And even if you can... will you oppose their plan, or support it?
How We Got Here
I’ve been writing since before I was taught to write (literally – my first short story at the age of 2 was just a series of scribbles, though with full stops and paragraphs). I was an avid reader too, and by the age of 11 I’d already finished all 14 of Fleming’s Bond books, a good few Ludlum and Patterson titles, and many more. So it felt completely natural that becoming a crime author would be my deepest ambition.
Then, in 2002, two preteen girls were murdered in a small village near me, and people were baying for the blood of their killer. I felt the same – but this was also the time of the "War on Terror", and my young creative mind wondered what would happen if a terrorist took up a campaign that half of the populace actually agreed with?
Thus was born Ripe For Execution. In the 16 years since then, I’ve developed this story to ensure its themes, subplots and characters are all finely honed and linked.
The only thing that’s kept me from trying to get it out there is, well, life. Shortly after leaving university, a friend invited me to help her start an oral storytelling business – a career that eventually saw me telling stories to audiences in 7 countries, representing the Roald Dahl Estate on ITV, fronting web videos for the Oxford Reading Tree, writing the EU’s guide on storytelling for teachers, and so much more. It even led to my first few publication in bookshops: retellings of traditional English folklore for children.
It’s been a fantastic, enjoyable, exhilarating journey – but, alas, I found myself networking in circles that weren’t all that conducive of crime writing.
Which is why I’m so thrilled to have attracted the interest of Inkshares’ incredibly experienced and authoritative editorial team – this explosive story is now being guided along its final journey to the hands of readers worldwide!
Please click "Follow" for updates on the final few stages towards publication, and/or join us at www.facebook.com/ripeforexecution or www.twitter.com/creatorchip – and I look forward to sharing the world of Ripe For Execution with you!