WHEN investigative reporter Jan Mason discovers that a young woman found strangled to death in her Chelsea flat is the daughter of a prominent politician, she knows she has a big story on her hands.
What she doesn't know yet is that a mystery man has just told a stunned Alcoholics Anonymous meeting nearby that he might have killed his partner in a drunken blackout. And that Jan's old flame, Jim Phillips, the Metropolitan Police's deputy head of counter terrorism and a recovering alcoholic himself, was in that meeting - bound by its confidentiality. Soon, a member of the AA meeting will also be found dead, strangled with the same scarf.
Resourceful, well-connected, and always one step ahead of the police, Jan is willing to put herself in harm's way if it means catching a killer. And landing a front page exclusive.
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Don't Talk by Ian Ridley was published in paperback on 8 November 2022 by V Books and is a Jan Mason story.
As part of this #RandomThingsTours Blog Tour I am delighted to share an extract from the book with you today.
Extract from Don't Talk by Ian Ridley
THE DOCUMENT was staring at her, daring her to sign. And it was so tempting. Especially at this time of night. And with the bottle of red in its drained state. She lifted it from the coffee table and raised it to her eye level, closing one and focussing with the other to gauge whether she might just squeeze one more glass out of it. Hard to tell with its dregs slooshing from side to side. Maybe. She shouldn’t make a decision just now. Not like this. But she’d been putting it off for a month and had to decide by Friday. After a day off walking in Hyde Park she’d reasoned that perhaps a few drinks would help speed up the process. If a clear head hadn’t worked, maybe in vino veritas would be a better strategy.
Let’s weigh up those pros and cons again, Jan thought. First and foremost, the money they were offering. A year’s salary. Not bad. Particularly as she was now the highest paid news reporter on the paper. Or, get her, Chief Reporter at Large. She’d be able to pay off what was left of the mortgage on this flat with half of it. Then she’d quite literally have something concrete to show for her career. A two-bedroomed flat in Maida Vale. Not bad. She’d bought when the area was still relatively cheap and could make a good profit if she fell on hard times.
It would also allow her to take some time to rethink her life and what she was going to do with it now. People did that when they got to their fifties, right? She could travel to all those places she’d fantasised about for years: Machu Picchu, the Iguazu Falls, Ayer’s Rock. And Wakefield. Yes, she could see more of her mother. Suddenly the mellowness of her mood was punctured. Seeing more of her mother. Should that be a pro or a con, she wondered, and smiled.
Maybe after a month or two’s jet-setting, she could set herself up as freelance. She still had a good name in the business. A big name, even. Reporter of the Year in the British Newspaper Awards when she’d been one step ahead of the police in catching the man who had burned five people to death with a flamethrower at the Central London Mosque just after the London Olympics.
The London Olympics. My God. A whole decade ago, she thought. Really? A melancholy came over her to which only Who Knows Where the Time Goes by Sandy Denny would do justice and she called it up on her Spotify. It had been a while, she had to admit as the haunting song came through her Sonos speaker, since the words BY JAN MASON had had all the other media scrambling to follow up what was written beneath it. The game had changed even more, too. Much more being tied down to a desk, rewriting. More ‘churnalism’, fewer staff. She’d continued to be professional, turning a few decent tales, about a philandering politician or a human interest special on a missing child, but nothing that had made quite the same impact as that inspired and painstaking work to track down the ex-squaddie now serving life for murdering those innocent Muslims. Nothing where she’d been the one breaking the news, setting the agenda.
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former Arsenal and England captain Tony Adams, which was shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award.
The follow-up book Sober was published in 2017, 20 years on.
Three of his other books have also been nominated in the British Sports Book Awards.
His latest is The Breath of Sadness: On love, grief and cricket, which is a poignant account of coping with the death of his wife Vikki Orvice, a trailblazing sports journalist.
Over a 40-year career, Ian has been a sports writer for The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Observer and the Mail on Sunday, for whom he was Chief Football Writer.
He was named Sports Journalist of the Year in the 2007 British Press Awards and nominated on two other occasions.
Ian has also written for television, including more than 20 episodes of the Sky One drama series Dream Team, and currently has a film script optioned on the life story of the world champion boxer Darren Barker, based on the autobiography on which the two collaborated, A Dazzling Darkness.
His first novel, The Outer Circle, was published in 2018 and reissued in 2022 as Outer Circle, the first in the series of Jan Mason investigative journalist books.
Twitter @IanRidley1
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