The Release – Book Excerpt

Hi everyone! Today I am hosting author Alistair Moore and we are going to learn about his latest crime fiction, The Release.

---

Get to know the author: Alistair Moore

Welcome, Alistair! Tell me and my readers a bit about yourself!

I am a London-born author and screenwriter. The Release (Candy Jar Books 2018) is my first published novel.

My short film Kickoff, starring Steven Waddington (Sleepy Hollow, Last of the Mohicans, The Sweeney) won the UK Film Festival’s Best British Short prize and placed in the top 5 in the London Sundance short film competition, as well as screening at Raindance London, Raindance Berlin, the Brooklyn Short Film Festival, London’s East End Film Festival and more.

What inspired you to write this book?

It was two ideas coming together – one was a character who people don’t notice, so almost invisible – and the situations this character might get into. The other idea was a revenge story – a father loses his son to teen violence, but does not feel the legal system has brought sufficient justice.

How long did it take you to write this book, from the first idea to the last edit?

The first draft took six months. I probably spent more time than that editing and rewriting it. Maybe just over a year’s work, cumulatively.

What makes your story unique?

It’s multi-layered – there are different levels to the story. One one level it’s a basic crime / revenge thriller. On another level it examines the consequences of social division. On another level it’s about isolation, on another about morality, on another about escape. You could even take it as a story about a character who is in love with brutalist architecture – this aesthetic side of it is explored a lot. I’d say the book has a literary feel, probably more so than many crime novels.

Who would enjoy reading your book? 

I genuinely think anyone who enjoys a good story will enjoy it, for the reasons above – it’s multi-layered, so I think it has wider appeal than just crime fiction. I think lovers of literary fiction would also enjoy it.

What’s something you hope readers would take away from it?

It tackles a few deep themes – questions of right and wrong, crime and punishment, improving your lot in life, escaping undesirable circumstances, nurture vs nature, whether your background shapes your destiny. I think it’s likely to get people thinking. But above all I hope readers enjoy and are entertained by it.

Do you have a favourite quote or scene in the book that you find yourself going back to?

I enjoyed writing the parts where the protagonist Bennie visits a home pretending to be a social worker, as there’s a lot of tension in those scenes. I also like the ending and how it’s all resolved, but I won’t give that away!

---

The Release

Book Excerpt from
The Release

They’re shouting outside my door again, out there in the hallway. I think it’s the Turks this time. I don’t know for sure because I don’t know the language. I get this a lot – raised, aggressive voices coming through the gap under my door, through the cardboard walls and into my space. I used to jump up to the spyhole half expecting to see bloody murder, until I realised this is simply how people communicate around here. I’ve seen it all through that spyhole.

Once a couple had full sex at the top of the stairs. I assumed at least one of them lived in the block and they were just thrillseeking, until I saw the cash handed over. At least they’d had the decency to clear away any leftovers, unlike the creator of the Pollock-style spattering of blood I found lacing the wall one morning. That was the only time I considered calling the police.

However my landlord, Mr Russell, who I called first, got very agitated at the idea and demanded I clean it off myself. When I refused to tamper with a probable crime scene, he yelled at me, hung up, and within half an hour an elderly handyman came and painted over the evidence. I did my best to forget the bloodstains, the handyman and the conversation with Mr Russell, gladder than ever I didn’t own a mobile phone and had used a payphone to call him.

I live in a tiny, very cheap bedsit. It has a mirror and a little washbasin in the corner. It also has a single bed, a three-legged chair, a standing lamp and a wardrobe. There’s a communal bathroom out in the hallway, and a shared kitchen which I avoid. I have virtually nothing to do with my neighbours, and that’s how I want it.

More often than not, the faces I see in this building are totally new to me. I’ve no idea who they are or where they come from, this mysterious, never-ending flow of people. As there are only twelve flats in the block, I’ve started wondering if behind some of these doors aren’t just one or two people but masses of huddled humans, perhaps hiding from the men in uniforms who would come to look for them.

I used to read a lot. I was always surrounded by books. Recently though, I got rid of the lot. They were making me feel isolated, cut off. It’s not an easy thing to explain. The idea forced itself upon me more and more that books represent nothing more than fragments of history, and there’s no way round it. It feels like reading yesterday’s news. Recent, yet at the same time so painfully old that it gives me a hollow feeling. My desire to leave the past behind is stronger than I realised.

Now all I have is an old vintage radio. I don’t own a computer. I use libraries for my research, partly for anonymity. To be honest, I try to spend as little time in this bedsit as I can. One other detail completes the picture. Sitting on the chair is a stack of paperwork. Pages and cuttings from newspapers make up some of it, but there are other documents in there too, including letters. There’s information in that pile with the power to change my life.

There’s another detail which isn’t quite part of this picture, because it’s hidden from view, like the rucksack under my bed holding several bundles of banknotes. Keeping cash under my bed feels foolish, even clichéd. So obvious, perhaps, that nobody would think of looking there, but the sorry truth is there’s nowhere else in here to hide it. There are no loose floorboards or air vents. The money was given to me by a man called Sanders.

Sanders first got in touch about a month ago. It was unexpected, as I’d long stopped advertising and hadn’t planned to do this kind of work again. I guessed who he was the minute I entered the café where he had asked to meet. He’d taken a table right at the back, well away from the window. I stood before him, but he didn’t acknowledge me. He was moving his fingers over a folded, yellowed newspaper on the table.

When he finally looked up, I said nothing. I wasn’t going to be the one to speak first. He introduced himself and asked me to sit. He was wearing a dark green wax hunting jacket, zipped all the way up to his neck. I wondered how he wasn’t too hot, dressed like that in the well-heated café. His hair was white, but the skin on his face, usually less than firm in a man of his age, seemed moulded neatly around his skull, the ridges and contours clearly defined. When he spoke muscles clenched around his jaw, contracting and changing position, like something alive under his skin.

He asked if I was going to eat. Maybe I looked hungry. I’d eaten nothing all day, but I told him I was fine. He asked about my background and experience, and why I didn’t have any credentials. I made no excuses for myself. I had nothing to prove. If he’d wanted someone with qualifications, he wouldn’t have contacted me – I knew that much. He opened the newspaper, which I now saw was eight years old, spread out a page in front of me and told me to read it.

Two photographs stood out in the middle of the piece, the faces of young men. Neither looked older than fifteen or sixteen. One seemed to have been cropped from a family snap. The other was a face-on photograph, taken against a grey background. Everything about this image radiated raw, naked defiance.

This was the first time I saw you. I read the article. It was the type of story that came up now and then, although I didn’t remember this one. An accompanying editorial described how this case proved we lived in a broken nation. A vicious and unprovoked attack resulting in the death of one boy and the jailing of another. A symptom of a sick society. ‘One life taken, two families devastated,’ a local politician had said with poetic gravitas.

As I handed the newspaper back to him, he looked at me intently, everything about him suggesting tension. The muscles around his jaw convulsed. He was trying to read me. His hands were clasped together on the table and I noticed his watch. It had a square golden face, a dark brown leather strap, possibly one of those older windup mechanisms. An heirloom, perhaps. I asked him what he wanted.

‘The animal that killed my boy gets out in a month. They’re going to give him a new identity and a new home.’ He looked around as if suddenly aware he was talking too loudly. ‘That’s the information I need.’

‘That’s it?’ I said.

‘That’s it, and that’s what you’ll get.’ He wrote a figure on a piece of paper and pushed it across to me. I tried not to show my astonishment at the amount, but I didn’t need to ask him if he meant it. I could tell he was serious. I closed my eyes to think. He told me I didn’t have to decide on the spot. It would be better, he said, to take my time, consider it carefully and decide whether it was right for me. He handed me a plumber’s business card with his phone number written on the back.

‘You can keep that,’ he said, pushing the newspaper across the table.

I stayed for a while after he left, watching people enter and leave via the swinging door. I read the article again, looked once more at the photographs. The contrast between them was striking. Of course, they’d been picked for that exact reason. A photograph can convey more than ten thousand words, and these were well-chosen. I always found that lies in newspapers fall into three categories. The first are the sort sometimes blamed on carelessness – factual errors, misattributions. I suppose you could call these mistakes, if you were being generous.

Then you get the deliberate untruths, designed not so much to mislead, but rather to fill in inconvenient holes left by missing facts. Papering over the cracks, if you will. The third type of lie is the worst: distortion of truth to serve a hidden purpose, an editorial line, or a vested interest.

The British claim to have the finest, most impartial media in the world. I always found this laughable. All we have is a wider variety of lies to choose from. The paper was a popular tabloid known for the indignant tone of its editorials. To these papers stories like this were a gift. The usual hyperbole wasn’t necessary. The facts were enough. The facts and, above all, the photographs – they did all the work. There was no need to tell the reader how to feel. We’re just the messengers. Form your own conclusions. It was a cheap trick, but effective. All the same, there was no denying it. Your crime was sickening and brutal. Two families devastated.

The sun was going down. I left the café, taking the newspaper with me. I walked back slowly, perhaps subconsciously delaying going home. When I finally reached my road it was dark. From the street, I could see the landing light up on the third floor was on. This was unusual. I had neighbours on my floor, but over the months I’d become familiar with their routines – well enough to know none of them was ever home at this time on a weeknight.

I stopped with my key in my hand. The main door to my building was already open. Ragged gouges on the doorframe showed me it had been forced. Beside the splinters covering the pile of letters on the mat, there were no other signs of damage. Feeling heavy, I began the six-flight ascent to my floor. I could smell the tobacco smoke. As I cleared the final stairs leading to my room, I held my breath.

A savage-looking man was sitting with his back against my door, legs outstretched, a smouldering cigarette between his lips. He was wearing a leather jacket over a black tracksuit with grubby white trainers. As he saw me he jumped to his feet, and I braced myself to be attacked or robbed. He had an abnormally wide jaw and deep-set features, a heavy brow and thick cheekbones. In the middle of all this were tiny button-like eyes set too close together. He smiled at me, revealing a mouthful of metal.

I should have known it wouldn’t be long before this happened. I compiled a mental inventory. On me, I had a bank card and a small amount of change. In the room I had the antique radio, remaining books, pens, notepads. Perhaps the radio would satisfy him – it might be worth something. The books, probably not. ‘

You help me, please.’

‘What is it?’ I replied, trying to hide the tremor in my voice.

‘I come in. Two minute.’

He looked capable of more than murder. I weighed up my options. I could simply turn around and walk away. I throbbed at the indignity of what I was dealing with, outside my own home, my only sanctuary on this earth. The shared kitchen was close by. I could run over, bundle myself inside, slam the door behind me and wedge a chair beneath the handle. At least I could then arm myself with a knife, a frying pan, anything, should he decide to kick his way through to me. I’d do my best to beat him unconscious before he could harm me. I felt momentarily frozen as adrenaline surged through my blood.

‘One minute. I come in. One minute.’ He released a cocktail of tobacco smoke and bad breath into my nostrils.

‘You can’t smoke here,’ I said. The cigarette was the last straw. I bunched up my fist. ‘Put it out now.’

---

Interested?

Find The Release on Goodreads, IndieStoryGeek and Amazon.

Many thanks to Alistair for sharing an excerpt with us! Connect with him on his website, Goodreads and Amazon.

---

If you are an indie author and would like to do a book excerpt, check out my work with me page for details.

Cover image: Photo on Unsplash