Second novel · In printing

Mission Complete

Sophie knows how to keep a system safe. People are harder. When a breach opens a door that should have stayed shut, the boyfriend she has already begun to doubt turns out to have spent a year living under a name that isn't his — and the man she falls for instead is no more honest. Two men, one woman, and not a single clean loyalty between them.

"No one is free from sin — so who is casting the first stone?"

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The pitch

Not a spy story

Betrayal and desire, loyalty and lies, thrown into the same pit to see what crawls out. This is not a spy story, nor a crime story. It is a story about people, and the mistakes they make with each other.

The espionage is the pressure chamber, not the point. What interests me is what people do to each other when the stakes are absolute and nobody can afford to be honest — and what is left of them afterwards.

The writing

Personal, raw, close to the bone

The same unguarded voice as the first novel, turned on harder material. The interior monologue stays intimate even while the plot moves through agencies, cover identities and compromised systems.

Nobody here is wholly good or wholly guilty. The tension comes from character rather than from gunfire, and the intimacy is written with the same honesty as the deceit.

The cast

Who is in the pit

Spoiler-free introductions — who they are when the book opens, not where they end up.

S
Sophie
Digital intelligence & system security
At the centre of everything: brilliant at reading machines, rather less careful about reading people. She is in a relationship she has quietly stopped believing in, and when someone else gets under her skin she has to decide what kind of person she is willing to be.
DJ
Daniel / Jerry
The boyfriend, undercover
Sophie's boyfriend — and an undercover agent who has kept his real identity hidden for a year. She is already doubting the relationship without knowing why; he is holding it together with a story that isn't his. Every closeness is a risk, and neither of them is being honest.
CA
Chris / Adam
The other side of the board
More than one name and more than one loyalty. The man Sophie falls for, after a long run of hurdles and against her better judgement — and the man she betrays Daniel with while the relationship is still standing. What he wants and what he is ordered to want are not the same thing.
J
John
The loyal friend
Chris/Adam's friend, and the closest thing to a fixed point in the book. He stays when it would be easier to walk away, and loyalty of that kind is never free.
MM
Maryam / Maya
Two names, one woman
A woman who has learned to be whoever the room requires. She arrives quietly, changes the temperature of every scene she is in, and knows more than she ever volunteers.

The story

Five turns of the screw

01
A breach
A system is compromised, and the fault lines run through people rather than code. The investigation begins as a technical problem and stops being one almost immediately.
02
A year in disguise
One man has been living a life that is not his. Every conversation is a calculation, every closeness a risk — until the calculation stops working.
03
Pandora's box
Another agency, another agenda, and a decision to keep pulling on the thread. What comes out cannot be put back.
04
Betrayal and desire
Loyalties to country, to service, to each other — all of them competing, none of them clean. The intimacy is as dangerous as the intelligence.
05
Mission complete
Objectives are met. People are not the same. The book asks what a completed mission actually costs, and who is left holding the bill.

Kept deliberately spoiler-light — the turns are better met on the page.

Themes

What the book is about

Betrayal and deceit
Love and hate in the same breath
Truth, lies and what lies between
Identity under cover
Loyalty with a price tag
Human error, not villainy
Consequence

Soundtrack

The playlist

The playlist for the second novel — arriving alongside the book.

In printing