Brother’s Keeper Published on Kindle!

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I’m extremely excited to share that I’ve published my debut novel on Kindle. It’s called Brother’s Keeper and it’s a crime thriller. Below is a description.

Jay Matthews intentionally goes against orders on a job in New York and triggers an international manhunt. He narrowly escapes New York but is forced by his employers to return to his family home in a quiet suburb in Epsom to lie low.

Jay hasn’t been home in almost a decade. He quickly realises that all is not as it seems in the outwardly affluent town, and his younger brother, Alan, the only family he has left, is in deep with the town’s ruthless criminal underbelly which has strong ties to the Russian mafia.

Jay has one chance to save Alan, but it’ll force him to reveal and forever embrace the hidden life he yearns to leave behind.

And here is a link to a free preview…

I really do hope you enjoy it. This is the first of the Jay Matthews series, and I’ve already started writing the second.

 

Brother’s Keeper: Episode 2

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New to Brother’s Keeper? Read Episode 1

Footsteps approach from behind …

Jay swiftly turns to the open door across the room that leads to the hallway, which is where the approaching footsteps emanate. He deftly hurdles a coffee table and smoothly advances to the door with his pistol raised.

Frank’s wife marches into the living room and immediately meets the pistol, aimed at her forehead. She is incapacitated with fear as she stares down the pistol barrel, and she doesn’t breathe.

He lowers the pistol, and she stares with absolute terror at him. He glances down, past her wet nightgown, to the pool of urine expanding out from her feet. He looks into her terrified eyes; there is only one decision to be made. He raises the pistol, and she frantically opens her mouth to plead, but he drives the butt of the pistol onto the back of her head and she collapses to the ground unconscious.

He calmly walks to the back door and steps over the unconscious young officer as he exits the room.

***

Jay steps out of the 42nd Street – Bryant Park subway station and walks briskly along the busy street. He pulls out a small very old model mobile phone and sends a blank text to “MR SMITH”.

A moment later, he smiles politely at the doorman as he steps into a four star 12-storey hotel, and walks through the reception directly to the three lifts across the room. He pushes the call button, and suddenly, his phone begins to vibrate. He pulls it out and checks the caller ID – “Unknown”. His demeanour instantly snaps to full alert and he slots both hands into his jacket pockets; he grabs his pistol, holstered around his shoulder, through a concealed slot in his right hand pocket. He glances backwards to scan the reception – it is empty, besides the evidently very bored receptionist; threat is minimal. He takes a couple steps backwards in readiness to attack as a lift opens, but it is empty. He walks into the lift and stares intently into the reception as the doors close.

He steps out of the lift at the tenth floor and remains motionless with his hands still in his pockets as he scans the hallway. He then walks quickly but quietly through the hallway, paying particular attention to the room doors, and abruptly stops at a room door near the end of the hallway. He uses his left hand to strongly knock the door twice, and closes his eyes as he keenly listens for any sounds beyond the door; there is none. He pulls out the room key card with his left hand and opens the door.

He steps into the room and shuts the door behind him. He switches the light on and immediately back off, and in that moment he’d taken a mental picture of the room; the room is empty and everything inside is as he’d left it. He walks quickly to a small travelling bag on the neatly made bed, but as he unzips it his phone begins to vibrate. He pulls out his phone; caller ID – “MR SMITH”. He answers the call.

‘Captain,’ Mr Smith says, with a soothing elderly Texas accent. ‘They are coming for you.’

Brother’s Keeper: Episode 1

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New to the Blog? Read my Introduction and the synopsis of Brother’s Keeper

Midnight approaches and silence reigns in the leafy back garden of a detached house in suburban New York. In a dark corner, light glistens off the silver suppressor of a black M9 pistol in the grip of a gloved hand, and eyes intently stare through a back window into the living room of the police safe house.

In the sparsely lit living room, a scruffy middle-aged police officer sits with Frank – a despicable and overweight hoodlum who’s turned prime state’s witness against his long-time employers and associates. They laugh extremely loudly as they watch The Big Bang Theory on the equally loud television. Another much younger officer stands by the back window, alert. He glances through the window into the garden as he’s done repeatedly over the past three hours, waiting anxiously for his shift to be over. Suddenly, there is movement from above and the young officer instantly looks up.

‘Chill out, kid, it’s the missus,’ Frank says, with a strong Brooklyn accent.

‘I think we woke her,’ the young officer says.

‘Fuck that,’ Frank retorts. ‘She’ll fall back asleep any moment. She can sleep through anything.’ He turns to the older officer beside him on the couch and smiles suggestively as he says, ‘Trust me.’

Frank and the older officer laugh hysterically, and the younger officer forces a smile as he pulls out a cigarette and lighter.

‘Not in here,’ the older officer orders, in an almost identical accent to Frank.

The younger officer nods and diligently walks the couple steps to the back door. He taps in a six-digit code into the alarm control panel by the door and pushes it open. He steps through the door into the back garden, and just before the sturdy door closes behind him, a gloved hand stops it and slowly pushes it open. Jay Matthews – a steely-eyed athletically built man in his late twenties, dressed in black – walks through the door wielding the suppressed M9 pistol. He walks intently towards Frank and the older officer, leaving the younger officer sprawled out unconscious just outside the door.

Frank and the older officers are completely focused on the television, and their boisterous laughter drowns out Jay’s footsteps as he approaches. Frank opens his mouth widely to burst into laughter and Jay shoots him in the mouth. He is dead instantly and slumps lifeless, but Jay shoots him twice more in the chest.

The older officer is motionless but unafraid as he watches Jay calmly pull out a black rose and place it on Frank’s rotund belly.

‘Sorry bout the fucking delay,’ the officer whispers, and gestures to the unconscious younger officer. ‘That fucking boy scout didn’t gimme a chance, was by the door all night. You fucking killed him, right?’

Jay aims the pistol at the officer’s head.

‘Hey! Hey!’ the officer chides, and slaps his bulletproof vest. ‘In the vest! And take a couple steps back. You can’t always trust this NYPD issued shit.’

Jay doesn’t respond.

‘Come on,’ the officer chides. ‘Make it quick. I think the …’

Jay shoots the officer between the eyes, killing him instantly. He stares intently at the lifeless officer; his orders explicitly said to kill everyone in the house except the officer, but fuck that, it had to be done. Suddenly, footsteps approach from behind.

And so it begins …

/ amenalonge / 1 Comment

Simply, I’m a budding writer, in my late twenties, awaiting opportunity. I’ve been writing for about five years now, and I’m still patiently waiting on that “big break” – just like most other budding writers, I suppose. But it’s a different world now, and we create our own opportunities – well, that’s what I’m told 🙂. So, here it goes. I’ve just completed a crime novel titled “A GOOD DAY TO KILL” – about a lone survivor of a London gangland massacre who after a decade returns for just one day to exact vengeance or die trying – and it’s in the process of getting published. So while that process takes it course, and please wish me luck, I’ll begin writing a full-length crime thriller – independent of A Good Day To Kill – on here. At this moment I know most of the beats of the story, all the primary characters, their arcs and fate, and the eventual conclusion of the story, but all the other elements will evolve as I write. I even have a working title, “BROTHER’S KEEPER”, but that’ll be evolving too, if it needs to. I’ll keep the weekly posts – let’s call them EPISODES henceforth – fairly short, but that’s subject to evolution as well. A new episode will be up on Mondays. I’m completely new to blogging, but I’m utterly excited and keen – I know, both words mean the same thing, but that’s how excited (and keen) I am – so please forgive my growing pains.

BRIEF SYNOPSIS/TEASER

After an intentionally botched hit, a masterful international hitman is sent back home to lay low and get his mind right. Home is in a small town on the outskirts of London, and there he soon realizes that the only family he has left, the younger brother he left behind, gravely needs him to be the man he wants to leave behind – a destroyer.