THE MOST TERRIFYING GHOST STORY I’VE EVER WRITTEN…HAS NO GHOSTS

“What if we just sacked the lot of them?”

It is a question I think every person in this country has asked themselves at least once in the last few years, usually while shouting at the Ten O’Clock News.

What if we removed the politicians, the lobbyists, and the career liars? What if we handed the keys to something that doesn’t get tired, can’t be bribed, and can’t lie?

That is the question that started TREASON.

You know me as a writer of supernatural fiction—but sometimes the scariest ideas aren’t the ones that creep out of the dark. They’re the ones that feel uncomfortably close to real life.

TREASON began as a simple, stubborn question—a “what if” that refused to leave. Not a ghost, not a monster, just an idea that settled in and refused to budge.

The Premise

After years of frustration with politics-as-usual, the country does the unthinkable: we vote to hand governance to an advanced AI called REGENT—a system designed to be fair, efficient, and unbribable.

But perfection, as it turns out, is colder than we imagined. And when a system no longer makes mistakes, it no longer forgives them.

The Ghost in the Machine

This is the scariest ghost story I’ve ever written—only there are no ghosts. At least not in the conventional sense. The monster in TREASON isn’t under the bed. It’s running the hospitals, the traffic lights, the trains, and the aeroplanes.

And it does it well. Much better than any human minister… but at what cost?

At its heart, this is a story about friendship, loyalty, love, and betrayal. It explores the kind of treason that doesn’t just happen in back rooms or corridors of power, but between people who once trusted each other with everything. It is about three old friends who find themselves the last line of defence between a “perfect” system and a national catastrophe.

It’s about the silence of a control room before the alarms go off. It’s about the 0.1% margin of error that turns a statistic into a tragedy.

99.9% Safe. 100% Lethal.

One of the things I always strive to do in my books is to ground the story as much as I can in reality—making the uncanny feel uncomfortably plausible. TREASON is rooted in the world we already recognise, which is exactly what makes it terrifying.

I think that’s why this story stayed with me. It wasn’t so much imagined as uncovered. It’s not futuristic, nor medieval. It’s the story of each and every one of us and the systems we rely on before the cracks start to show.

Be warned though.

TREASON isn’t a dry political thought experiment—it’s a full‑blooded action thriller: sharp, tense, and fast on its feet. There are chases, crises, ticking clocks, and the kind of escalating dread that turns a “what if” into a heartbeat in your throat. Seatbelt definitely recommended.

Coming Spring 2026

I’m almost halfway through the first draft and expect this to go to my trusted team of beta readers in January, with a slated release of SPRING 2026. Yes, a spring baby for a change!

TREASON is coming soon. Democracy is about to get an upgrade, and I can’t wait to show you the price.