Lingering Doubts
I’ve finished writing another title and passed it to Vinci Books for their approval. I hadn’t written anything longer than a newsletter since March 2023, and despite insisting I wasn’t suffering from writer’s block, it was clear something was holding me back from doing what I’d loved for a decade.
When you’ve written that final page, read through the manuscript for the hundredth time, you get an indescribable feeling.
A mixture of euphoria, relief, satisfaction, and fear. Fear that it’s not as good as what came before.
I thought The Freeman Files needed a prequel —perhaps even deserved one — so readers would understand why Gus Freeman came out of retirement.
So, that was what inspired ‘Lingering Doubts’: –
A young Gus Freeman, ambitious and not yet hardened by years of policing, leads an investigation into the murder of a teenage girl found near a military installation on the edge of Salisbury Plain in 1985. The case has plenty of evidence, but nothing that fits together cleanly.
Under pressure to deliver a swift resolution, he follows the trail that points to Brian Cutler, a man with motive, means, and a criminal past. Gus faces a choice between loyalty to his superiors and faith in his instincts. He makes a decision that will haunt him for decades.
A piece of evidence resurfaces several years later, and Gus returns to the village that started it all, to a graveyard that still carries the weight of a broken promise.
Lingering Doubts reveals the mistake that drives him back from retirement, with renewed zeal to seek the truth.
Blurb & Early Reaction
Update from the Author
I know you want to hear that there will be more old Gus Freeman cases to savour, but this is the perfect way to close the file on a character who changed my life.
A few weeks after my 80th birthday I think it’s time for a change, a less frenetic pace.