Spoiler Alert
Welcome to the Blake Langford Short Story Previews page. In this section, you will be able to access the opening pages of each short story in the Blake Langford Adventures series. This will therefore lead to spoilers from each story being shared but it will also give you the opportunity to see if that particular adventure is for you. The full versions of each of these adventures can be purchased through Amazon and most popular bookshops worldwide.
Shield
Whilst working through the first draft of the fifth Blake Langford novel, John kept being asked when the next adventure would arrive and what's happening with Blake, Alison, Samir, Joe and the rest of the characters who have become an integral part of The Blake Langford Adventures. It seemed that readers were looking for more connections with the series than the one novel per year that has been published so far and that spawned the idea of a spin-off short story series. By creating shorter fiction, John has been able to explore the world of The Blake Langford Adventures in more detail, interacting with characters, scenarios and events that formed part of the main series whilst keeping the core interest of the series going. Shield is the first in a collection of short stories that will be released monthly for the rest of 2025 and features Blake working alongside his German Special Branch colleague, Keith Hausenkraft, a character we will get to meet in more detail when the fifth novel, Everything, is released at the end of 2025.
When Special Branch agent Blake Langford discovers that a fellow agent, Sasha Kira is entangled in a dangerous affair with a German politician, his loyalties are tested.
Torn between shielding a colleague and safeguarding national security, Blake delves deeper into the politician’s shadowy agenda.
As the stakes rise and the threat becomes impossible to ignore, Blake must convince Sasha to put duty above desire or risk both of their lives and the fate of British Intelligence.
Shield
The 1st Blake Langford Short Story Preview
Blake Langford stood amongst a crowd of photographers and journalists anxiously awaiting their chance to pounce. Like a lion stalking its prey, every move is calculated, every move deliberate but here, the hunter soon becomes the hunted.
As two men wearing black suits with earpieces in full view enter the terminal, his attention is drawn to the blonde woman wearing a grey two-piece suit hanging onto the arm of the prey the media seek.
As the prey politely answers a couple of questions before continuing on his way, Blake follows the hunters out of the airport terminal, watching nonchalantly as they desperately try to catch the perfect photo for their reports.
His mission was simple, to track and follow Sasha Kira, a fellow Special Branch agent assigned to assist and support Gerhard Klassenheimer, a well established member in German political circles and rumoured to be the next German Chancellor.
A yellow taxi pulls up to the curb and Blake climbs into the back seat.
“Eyes on the prize?” the driver asked.
“Subtlety is key,” Blake replied as they passed through the streets of Berlin in a blur before arriving at a gated house on the outskirts of the city.
“I’ll be in the alley, zero one hundred hours,” the driver said as he handed Blake a black box.
He opened it and removed a gun and a pen from inside it. “What’s this?” Blake asked, waving the pen in the air.
“It can write a very binding contract if you catch my drift.”
Blake smiled. “Totally, thanks Keith,” he said before stepping out of the car and walking down the road towards the front gate, the evening breeze flowing through his short black hair.
He looked up at the camera mounted upon the post at the side of the gate as he approached. The gates opened automatically and he walked through. As he approached the house, he noticed several couples dressed in formal wear were sipping champagne and loitering in the shadows of the front garden. Golden lights decorated the front of the house with glass baubles placed on the lawn that wouldn’t have been out of place at a Christmas fayre.
Blake entered the house and carefully moved past several couples as he approached the kitchen. A suited barman stood behind a work surface creating cocktails for a delighted audience whilst music blared out from speakers strategically placed around the house.
The Last Train
The second Blake Langford short story takes place on the south coast before finishing in the heart of London. Samir Khalifa joins Blake in this adventure as they investigate the disappearance of Blake's brother, Steven Langford, who we met in the third novel, In The Shadow Of My Life. Alongside Blake and Samir is a new Detective Chief Inspector, Heather Fordingbridge, a character with divided loyalties who we meet in the fifth Blake Langford novel, Everything.
Blake Langford waits at Waterloo Station for his brother Steven to arrive on the 10pm train from Bournemouth. But when the train arrives, Steven is nowhere to be seen. His phone is off and no one has heard from him for the past 24 hours.
Meanwhile, Samir Khalifa receives a call from a Police Detective in Eastleigh about a derailed train that plunged into a river, claiming multiple lives.
As Blake and Samir dig deeper into Steven’s disappearance, they uncover a tangled web of mistaken identity and a ruthless criminal organisation laundering money across cities in the UK.
With the truth pointing to Steven being entangled in a deadly conspiracy, Blake must race against time to unravel the mystery before his brother’s involvement costs him his life.
The Last Train
The 2nd Blake Langford Short Story Preview
Blake Langford stood on platform eighteen at Waterloo Station on a rainy Monday evening. Three other people had been waiting patiently with him as he checked his watch. 22:05. The ten o’clock train from Bournemouth had arrived but his brother, Steven, was nowhere to be seen. Passengers rushed past him on the platform, some hurrying towards the exits or towards the network of underground trains that snaked across the capital, others pausing to embrace waiting loved ones.
A family of four passed by, the father balancing a suitcase in one hand whilst holding his sleepy daughter in the other. The scene made Blake think of his own son, Michael, after he arrived in London at eight years old, full of wonder of what this new country had in store for him after spending the first eight years of his childhood in Miami. A group of university students, laughing and jostling each other, headed towards the Underground.
Blake scanned the thinning crowd again, irritation beginning to seep in. Steven was late. That in itself wasn’t unusual, his younger brother had a habit of losing track of time. Whilst his younger days of student parties, sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll were behind him since he found peace in a spiritual retreat in Cambodia a few years ago, some other habits seemed harder to break. Blake tried to remain positive but his phone going straight to voicemail all day, that was unusual.
He pulled out his phone and tried again. Still off. He exhaled slowly, willing himself to stay calm. There was probably some kind of simple explanation to all of this. Steven might’ve missed the train or maybe his phone had died. Neither scenario was cause for concern, not yet anyway. But a persistent unease settled in Blake’s mind. His instincts, honed by years in Special Branch, told him that something was wrong.
He strode towards the station’s information desk.
“Excuse me,” he said, flashing his ID. “Blake Langford, Special Branch. I need to check if a passenger named Steven Langford was on the Bournemouth train that just arrived.”
The woman behind the counter hesitated. “I’m afraid we don’t keep track of individual passengers, sir.”
Blake leaned in slightly. “I understand, but this is a matter of urgency. I know that facial recognition technology was implemented on your trains eighteen months ago so anything you can tell me, if there were any delays or incidents on the route would be helpful.”
She looked at him cautiously before typing into her computer. “The train arrived on time with no reported issues. If your brother was on board, he should’ve disembarked with everyone else.”
But he hadn’t.
Blake nodded his thanks and stepped away, his mind working through possibilities. He checked his messages one last time but there was nothing from Steven. He called Paula at home to see if Steven had left a message for him there but she had heard nothing from him. Then his phone buzzed.
He answered immediately. “Steven?”
“No, it’s Samir,” came the familiar voice of his colleague from Special Branch. “Blake, we have a situation.”
Blake felt his muscles tense. It was unusual for Samir Khalifa to call when they were not involved in a case together unless it was serious. “What kind of situation?”
“A train derailment in Eastleigh. It went off the tracks and into the river. Multiple fatalities.”
Blake felt a shiver run through him. “The Bournemouth train?”
“It started its journey in Bournemouth, yeah,” Samir said. “But here’s the thing, local police found something in the wreckage. A wallet. It belongs to your brother, Steven Langford.”
Coleslaw And Chips
The third Blake Langford short story takes place in London when Blake is inadvertantly caught up in a conspiracy involving £20 notes which have had their metal counterfeit strips replaced with lethal artificial intelligence.
When a late-night Kebab house is destroyed in a gas explosion, the owner uncovers a mysterious metal strip imbedded in a £20 note taken from the till just minutes before the blast.
Elsewhere, Blake Langford, enjoying a cone of chips outside a local takeaway, observes two men exchanging cash near a dumpster. His curiosity leads him to discover a young woman tied up behind the bin. As Blake works to free her, she warns him that the money will kill them both before fleeing to a nearby hotel.
Drawn into a dangerous conspiracy, Blake must unravel the link between the marked money, the explosion and the enigmatic woman before he becomes the next victim of a deadly secret.
Coleslaw And Chips
The 3rd Blake Langford Short Story Preview
The clock above the counter read 11:57 pm when Mehmet Yilmaz flipped the “Open” sign to “Closed” at his kebab house on Harrow Street. The air smelled of sizzling lamb and garlic sauce, a comforting haze after a long shift. He wiped his hands on his apron, the fabric, although regularly cleaned, remained stained with years of grease. As he opened the till to count the night’s takings, a single £20 note caught his attention as it sat on top of a pile of coins. It was a last-minute payment from a twitchy customer who had ordered a doner with extra coleslaw and chips before leaving quickly. Mehmet slid the note into his pocket, planning to grab a coffee from the late-night cafe down the road.
He’d barely locked the door when his world was irreversibly changed. A thunderous boom shook the ground, hurling him into the street as glass and brick scattered like confetti all around him. His ears rang, his vision blurred with smoke. When he staggered to his feet, the kebab house that was once his livelihood, his reason for working the long hours far away from his family back home, was gone, reduced to a smoldering pile of debris. Fire engulfed the wreckage and distant sirens echoed in the frosty night air. Mehmet’s hands trembled as he pulled the £20 note from his pocket, its edges singed but intact. Under the flickering streetlight, he noticed something odd. There was a thin, metallic strip woven into the paper, glinting like a hidden secret just waiting to be discovered. He knew it wasn’t a normal security thread. He’d handled thousands of notes and this was different. It felt warm to the touch, unfamiliar and potentially dangerous.
A fireman shouted at him to move back but Mehmet barely heard. His mind raced as he tried to figure out what had happened. The explosion had been called a gas leak on the crackling radio of a nearby police car, but that £20 note, something about it was unsettling him. He slipped it back into his pocket before sitting down on the curb, wondering who or what he had done to cause this retaliation in a community he regarded as a home away from home.
Firing Line
Alison Pearce reaches out to Blake after discovering the death certificate of her estranged sister hidden amongst classified document in Special Branch Headquarters. As Blake's weekend off is brought to an abrupt end, the two colleagues head to Amsterdam to repair the damage caused by a previously failed mission and hopefully find out what happened to Alison's sister.
When Alison Pearce stumbles across her estranged sister’s death certificate in a classified file at Special Branch Headquarters, her world is turned upside down. Desperate for answers, she contacts her family only to learn from her brother-in-law that her sister is not dead, she’s working undercover, infiltrating the operations of a powerful multi-millionaire trafficking drugs out of Amsterdam. With the stakes continuing to rise, Blake Langford assists Alison to help unravel a treacherous web of lies that stretches from the shadows of Amsterdam’s red light district to the upper echelons of the Dutch Government. But as they uncover secrets that could compromise national security, Alison and Blake must confront a chilling question: when military secrets are on the line, how do you know who to trust?
Firing Line
The 4th Blake Langford Short Story Exclusive Preview
Blake Langford walked the aisles of the local supermarket with his wife, Paula, as he enjoyed some long overdue time away from Special Branch. As Paula began looking at the beef joints in the fresh meat aisle, he heard a song playing over the tannoy speakers that took him back to his childhood in the 1980’s. After continuing on their way, he overheard one of the shop workers commenting about the song on the store radio.
“You know it’s going to be Sod’s Law that I’m going to die in this place with that bloody song blasting on the radio as I take my last breath,” he said before noticing that Paula and Blake were nearby.
Blake chuckled softly at the shop worker’s grim humour, exchanging an amused glance with Paula. The song was some synth-heavy 80s tune he couldn’t quite place but felt lodged deep in his memory as it continued to hum through the supermarket’s speakers.
Paula nudged him with her elbow, holding up two packs of beef joints. “Roast tomorrow?” she asked, her voice pulling him back from the memory.
“Yeah, sounds good,” Blake replied, though his attention drifted again as the worker shuffled past them, muttering something about needing to restock the sausages.
There was a weariness in the man’s demeanour that Blake recognized. It was a kind of quiet resignation he’d seen in too many faces during his years with Special Branch. Too many days, weeks, months, even years, pursuing a line of enquiry that inevitably was never completed and the complacency begins to filter in. You became less focused, less enthusiastic about your work and that was inevitably where things began to go wrong and you ended up unemployed or dead. Blake shook the feeling off. This was supposed to be a break, a respite from the weight of his work but he struggled to shake off a nagging doubt of something feeling not quite right.
They moved towards the fresh vegetable and produce aisle. Paula began debating between carrots or parsnips while Blake absentmindedly scanned the shelves. The song looped into its chorus again and he found himself humming along. He hadn’t thought about the 80s in ages, mix tapes, neon trainers, the crackle of his father’s old radio when they used to go fishing off of Lepe Beach. Simpler times and simpler days that he often longed for at times when things became too heavy. We all tend to look back with rose-tinted glasses about the old days and Blake knew, the hard times and some of the good times were what made him the man he was today.
“Oi, mate, you’re blocking the spuds,” came a gruff voice behind him.
Blake turned to see a stocky man in a faded denim jacket, arms crossed, glaring at him over a trolley piled high with discounted tins of food.
“Sorry,” Blake said, stepping aside with a polite nod.
The man grunted and shoved past, muttering under his breath about “dawdlers.” Paula raised an eyebrow at Blake, suppressing a smirk.
“Charming,” she whispered, tossing a bag of potatoes into their trolley.
“Can’t win them all,” Blake smiled.
Group Think
The fifth Blake Langford Adventures short story was a fun adventure to write as it focuses on the darker side of Samir Khalifa's character that had previously been explored in the third and fourth Blake Langford Adventures novels. After John had recently visited Newcastle with his family, the idea to base the story in the city meant that Blake, Alison and Samir had to rely on their own experience away from their secure Special Branch base in London giving this story a different dynamic to what has gone before. (This title will be released on August 1st 2025.)
Special Branch agent, Samir Khalifa goes undercover at a high-stakes casino to investigate a gambler suspected of using a chain of laundrettes as a front for a tax evasion and money laundering scheme.
When nine other businessmen buy into the scheme however, Samir becomes the lone hold-out, placing him in direct opposition with the gambler and under growing suspicion.
As Blake Langford and Alison Pearce infiltrate the consortium, Samir’s doubts deepen. The operation seems too smooth, the profits too tempting and the gambler was too convincing.
As pressures mount and loyalties blur, Samir must decide whether to hold his ground or will the power of group think push him to cross a line he swore he’d never breach?
Group Think
The 5th Blake Langford Short Story Exclusive Preview
The neon lights of the Golden Mirage Casino on Newgate Street in Newcastle illuminated the night sky, casting a kaleidoscope of colour across Samir Khalifa’s face. He adjusted the cuffs of his tailored suit as he caught the reflection of his freshly shaven stubble in the window. The weight of his Special Branch ID on this occasion was replaced by a gambler’s chip in his pocket. He had often enjoyed summer evening walks alongside the vast Tyne River down by the Quayside, back when he and his colleague, Alison Pearce, had been briefly dating. Simpler times, happier times but tonight, he was focused on the game in hand. He wasn’t a Special Branch agent. He was Sami Kassem, a high-roller, risk-taker and the newest mark in Vincent Moretti’s dysfunctional regime.
Moretti was a Special Branch target. A slick, silver-haired gambler with a disarming smile and a reputation for turning dirty money clean. Intelligence had identified him as the mastermind behind a laundrette chain that scrubbed more than just stains. Tax evasion, money laundering, a multimillion-pound operation hidden behind spin cycles and detergent fumes. Samir’s job was simple, to get close, gather evidence and dismantle it. But nothing about Vincent Moretti was simple.
The casino was buzzing with animated conversations, the clink of chips, the spinning of the roulette wheels and the murmur of wealth. Samir slid into a seat at Moretti’s private poker table in a room separated off at the side. As he entered, he felt the tension in the room. Moretti’s eyes flicked up, assessing him like a predator sizing up his prey.
“New blood,” Moretti smiled, his voice calm and calculated. “You got a name or should I just call you Lucky?
“Sami Kassem,” Samir replied, matching Moretti’s grin. “And I don’t rely on luck.”
The game began and so did the dance. Over the next few nights, Samir played his role to perfection, winning just enough to impress, losing just enough to stay humble. Moretti began warming to him, dropping hints about potential business opportunities in between hands. It wasn’t long before the pitch came.
“A laundrette empire,” Moretti said one night, as he swirled and drank the remains of a glass of bourbon. “Low overheads and a steady cash flow with minimum effort on your part. The kind of thing a man like you could buy into. Clean money, Sami. Real clean.”
Samir resisted the obvious pun and leaned in, feigning interest. “What’s the catch?”
“No catch. Just a consortium. There are nine other players already in. Smart men. Hungry men. Men who know a good deal when they see one.”
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