John Roberts
Join Blake Langford and his colleagues in three new short stories that complement the novel series; The Blake Langford Adventures.Death In The First DegreeMorgan, a first year student at Kings Cross University, turns up at Special Branch Agent, Blake Langford’s flat at 2am, bloodied and shaken, claiming her boyfriend, Charlie Swanson, attacked her. Skeptical but concerned, Blake ventures out to the scene of the alleged assault. Instead of signs of a struggle, he stumbles upon the lifeless body of a Special Branch agent.As Blake begins to dig into Charlie Swanson’s past, he finds himself entangled in a web of secrets that reach far beyond a simple case of domestic violence. Charlie isn’t just a troubled boyfriend, he has ties to a shadowy underworld figure known only as The Lyricist, a ruthless and enigmatic gang leader whose influence runs deep through London’s criminal networks.A Taste Of FreedomAfter twenty-five years behind bars, William Barnes steps out of HMS Drummond Prison in London, finally a free man. But his freedom lasts mere seconds. As he takes his first breath of free air, a car screeches past, gunfire erupts and Barnes collapses, dead before he hits the ground.Meanwhile, in Oxford, Blake Langford pushes open the doors of All Saints Church, expecting quiet solitude. Instead, he finds a lone figure crouched at the altar, clutching a wine glass filled to the brim with blood. As Blake steps closer, the man offers no explanation, only a cryptic stare and trembling hands.With no immediate source for the blood and no apparent crime, Blake begins to dig into the man’s connections within Oxford’s academic and religious circles. What he discovers leads him back three decades to William Barnes, his violent past and a hidden secret that someone was willing to silence forever.Nothing To DeclareAfter a grueling Special Branch mission in Morocco, Blake Langford lands in Paris’s Charles de Gaulle Airport expecting a routine customs check. Instead, he’s detained when officers discover a locked briefcase amongst his luggage, one that Blake insists isn’t his.Before he can explain, a team of armed guards storm the checkpoint shattering any hope of a simple misunderstanding. In the chaos, Blake escapes with the briefcase but is now branded as an international fugitive, pursued by relentless mercenaries and police.Blake teams up with Isabelle Moreau, a Special Branch agent in their French division who helps him uncover a conspiracy tied to stolen intelligence, a vanished diplomat and a shadowy criminal known as The Silent Hand.As Blake and Isabelle travel across Europe, each clue pulls them deeper into a web of black market espionage. The briefcase holds encrypted files exposing a government betrayal so explosive, it could destabilise nations. But someone powerful wants to keep those secrets buried and they will kill to keep them hidden.
