ROUNDFIRE BOOKS: COMING OCTOBER 28, 2025​

Freebourne

“A thinking reader’s thriller with such a shocking twist I was genuinely unprepared for it.”
Trezza Azzopardi, Booker-shortlisted author of The Hiding Place

After learning of his wife’s affair with his best friend and business partner, divorced and unemployed MindTech entrepreneur Dr Harry Coulson arrives in the idyllic English town of Freebourne, looking to start a new life. But any hopes of quietly picking up the pieces of his broken world are shattered when he steps off the train to discover the body of a young woman lying in the snow. It’s almost as if she’d been left there for him to find. Harry does everything he can to help.

But as a stranger arriving on the night Freebourne witnesses its first murder in over a century, he not only becomes a suspect in the woman’s killing but finds himself caught in a deadly game between science, faith, and free will — in a secret far darker and more terrifying than anything he could have imagined.

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Praise for Freebourne

“This races off in top gear from the start and the pace never slackens. A true page-turner.”
Nick Ferrari

“Freebourne is a stunning debut from Salman Shaheen. Compelling, propulsive and endlessly surprising, it might just be the thriller of the year.”
Charles Elton, bestselling author of Richard and Judy Book Club pick Mr Toppit

“An edgy, fast-paced excursion into the near future.”
Sean Coughlan, BBC News

“A gripping murder mystery with a sci-fi flavour and an utterly original twist that keeps you guessing at every turn.”
Aristos Georgiou, Newsweek

“Shaheen creates a recognisable universe before upending expectations with a series of violent twists and a denouement that had me gasping aloud. Midsomer Murders meets The Matrix. A riveting read.”
Judith Woods, The Telegraph

“An extraordinary new voice.”
Lord Bilimoria, CBE DL

“Freebourne is a gripping thriller that blends suspense, science, and human nature into a compelling narrative that will keep you on the edge of your seat.”
Channi Singh OBE, lead singer of Alaap and the ‘godfather’ of Bhangra in the west

“You will be hooked. I was.”
Alan Gibbons, bestselling author of Blue Peter Book Award-winning Shadow of the Minotaur

“A twisty debut thriller set in a near-future that is both reassuringly familiar and frighteningly not. Nothing in Freebourne is quite as it seems, least of all the meaning of friendship, or what it means to be free.”
Andrew Cowan, author of Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award-winning Pig

“Freebourne raises timely questions about the future use of AI, for both good and bad, as well as social debates around free will that reminded me of one of my favourite novels of all time, A Clockwork Orange.”
Attila the Stockbroker

“Freebourne is a gripping, mind-bending thriller that will have you questioning reality at every turn. Prepare for a tension-filled ride where nothing is as it seems.”
Andy Fryers, Sustainability Director, Hay Festival

“An outstanding novel, full of suspense. Salman Shaheen’s mind-bending, speculative thriller, with its richly-drawn world and characters, will have you racing to the denouement and a twist that will knock you sideways. You won’t be able to put it down.”
Seema Malhotra MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Home Office

“Freebourne is a brilliant novel from a great writer. Its beautiful setting and compelling characters draw you into an ever-deepening mystery where the stakes are at the same time highly personal and of huge national and political importance. The ending will take your breath away.”
Ruth Cadbury MP

“Beneath the picturesque façade of Freebourne’s rural idyl lies something much darker. A cautionary tale about human freedom and the excesses of technology amid a page-turning hunt for a killer. Freebourne is a masterpiece and absolutely thrilling right up to its final moments. And then. Wow. The twist blew my mind.”
Jaz Delorean, lead singer of Tankus the Henge

“Black Mirror meets Broadchurch!”
Andria Zafirakou MBE, author of Those Who Can, Teach

“A riveting and original read full of twists and turns that held my attention from beginning to end. Definitely one you won’t want to miss.”
James Bloodworth, author of Hired and Lost Boys

“From the moment Harry steps off the train to discover her dead body, to the gut-punch of an ending that is both terrifying and ingenious and has you questioning everything that came before, Freebourne takes hold of you and it never lets go. It is an assured debut, brilliantly written and fiendishly plotted.”
Vikas Pota, author of India Inc and Founder & CEO of T4 Education

“Totally gripping! It had me hooked from the first line to the final, shocking conclusion. You’ll never see it coming.”
Jen Offord, author of Sunday Times-shortlisted The Year of the Robin

“A masterpiece. Beautifully written and utterly compelling, Freebourne is one of those thrillers that just simmers, long after you’ve finished reading it. The twist is completely original and mind-blowing. Freebourne is one of the best thrillers I’ve ever read.”
Karim Theilgaard, award-winning actor

“What begins as a small-town murder mystery in the not-too-distant future turns into something wholly original that left me guessing throughout all its twists and turns until the final revelation.”
Cllr Shantanu Rajawat, Leader of the London Borough of Hounslow

About Salman Shaheen

Salman Shaheen is a British politician, journalist and novelist. He has written for the Guardian, New Statesman, New Internationalist, and Times of India, and frequently comments on politics and economics on TV and radio. His exclusive exposes on corporate tax avoidance have made front-page news in the Observer and have been picked up by the FT and the Telegraph.

Salman launched Grow for the Future, the UK’s first-ever policy to transform wasteland into places for urban kids in deprived areas to grow food and learn about sustainability and biodiversity. The policy, initiated in the London Borough of Hounslow, has been backed by the UK government and championed by Downton Abbey’s Jim Carter OBE. He also partnered with Jamie Oliver to launch the celebrity chef’s first-ever food education programme directly targeted at primary schools to tackle childhood obesity.

Passionate about preserving green spaces, Salman helped lead the successful and nationally prominent campaign to save Park Road Allotments – a century-old wildlife haven established to feed wounded soldiers returning from the First World War – from being bulldozed by one of Britain’s richest landowners, the Duke of Northumberland.

Born in Norwich in 1984, Salman graduated with a Double First in Social & Political Sciences from Jesus College, Cambridge, before going on to complete the Creative Writing MA at the University of East Anglia. He now lives in Brentford, West London.

Salman is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.