Hello
I am J. Reid Graham, a doctor with decades of service as a clinician and a health service board member. A passion for fiction writing replaced my love of marathon running when a cycling accident put me on crutches for three years.
The title of my unpublished novel is FREE ECONOMIC ZONE, which is a speculative corporate technothriller with elements of romance and dark comedy. It was placed second runner up in the action adventure category of the 2026 Killer Nashville Claymore Award. Here is the opening.
From The Unmasking
Tommo claimed afterwards that he’d felt a strange sensation in the pit of his stomach as he went about his final checks at the fairground. His long-departed grandmother, Jacinta, had been blessed (or some might say cursed) with the gift of second sight and he believed that a sprinkling of that other-worldly ability had passed down to him. He’d experienced the same sense of foreboding before one of the cars on the big dipper had smashed Vince’s leg. Yet, as he squelched through the muddy grass on the blustery common and shone his torch around the site, he was unable to locate the source of his unease.
He checked the electrics to see if anything was still switched on and sparking, bent down on his arthritic knees looking for oil leaks, and searched for teenagers who might have gathered inside one of the rides for some underage drinking. There was nothing out of the ordinary.
It had been a quiet night on account of the storm, and everyone had packed up early. Tommo plodded around, wheezing. When he emerged from behind the protective shield of the Ghost Train, the wind whipped his cheeks, and a sudden gust sent the price sign crashing into the awning.
He trudged past the food stalls, where despite the wind, the smell of fried onions and sickly-sweet candyfloss hung heavy in the air. He looked across at the cluster of caravans. The windows of Vince’s van were steamed up, and he could detect a faint rocking motion. How a man, pushing forty, with a gold tooth and a gammy leg still managed to pull girls on a regular basis was one of life’s mysteries. Tommo hoped to God that tonight’s conquest was a bit older than last night’s girl. Despite her heavy make-up, she had looked very young. Total jailbait. Maybe that was what was bothering him? He didn’t know if he could keep the fair going without Vince.
When he approached the carousel with its faded ponies, he heard a strange sound. A tinny tune just audible above the gusts of wind. Tommo stopped still and listened closely. He turned his head and realised that it was coming from the House of Fun. At the gaudy entrance, the sound became more distinguishable. It made him think of Parisian accordion music.
‘Hello! Who’s there?’ Tommo called out as he entered the Hall of Mirrors.
He squinted, blinded by the reflections of his torchlight bouncing endlessly around the space. He aimed the beam at the ground and followed the direction of the noise. The whistling wind, the strange music and the distorted reflections set his nerves jangling. Was this someone’s idea of a joke? He stumbled in and out of the labyrinth of mirrors, his wheezing intensifying, until he found the source of the music; someone in a clown’s costume, a patched bowler hat pulled low to obscure the face, was sitting, propped up against a mirror. There was an accordion balanced on their knees and the music was coming from a CD player by their feet.
‘Move along now. Come on. Away with you’.
He nudged the figure on the shoulder, and it keeled over. As it did so, the hat fell, revealing the contorted face of young woman with hacked off hair and a bruised neck.
‘Oh Jeez, what the f…’
Tommo reached inside his pocket for his Ventolin and took in an almighty puff.
From Free Economic Zone
At SwellCorp’s riverside headquarters, CEO Kurt Berghelm sits behind his desk. His office is on the top floor of a cylindrical skyscraper that stands out among the rectangular blocks of London’s historic financial district – just two miles from Big Ben and the British state’s centre of political power in Whitehall. The building was designed to resemble a colossal bamboo shoot. Pound for pound, bamboo is stronger than steel. Growing. Surging. Unstoppable.
A live feed to Berghelm’s phone lets him study visitors while they await entry to his office. On his screen is Adam Cayne, the Yank he has known since Harvard. Inconveniently, Cayne knew the old Berghelm. A loose end to be used one last time before being disposed of.
Cayne is too jumpy to sit. He is tallish, but fragile. A straggly weed, in need of more sunlight. He stands holding a briefcase with both hands, as if it might be taken from him.
Berghelm is grim-faced as he buzzes his PA to let Adam enter. Then he flips into charm mode. ‘Adam! There he is,’ says Berghelm with the impeccable enunciation of an aristocrat. No trace of his Cockney roots, after years of reinvention. Then he crosses the room with gusto, radiating charisma like a celebrity on a red carpet. This CEO is energetic, but also compact and controlled. Still athletic despite all the corporate dining.
The greeting startles Cayne. Then a firm handshake from his boss makes him tremble.
Next comes Berghelm’s familiar soft chuckle. ‘Heh-heh.’ A cunning affectation.
Though Berghelm grins and laughs frequently, he is usually unreadable. The chuckle is a holding pattern that limits others having the chance to get a word in.
‘Sit down, sit down. Looking more pixel-pale than ever. You old mouse-potato, you.’ Chuckle. ‘Need to leave your tech bunker more often.’
Absorbing the thinly-veiled insults, Cayne smiles politely, then sits after his boss.
Berghelm leans forward, elbows light on the desk, expression attentive. ‘I know the suspension isn’t easy,’ he says with apparent empathy. ‘These processes take far too long.’
‘Performance concerns apparently,’ says Cayne in the scholarly transatlantic accent that has much the same effect here in old England as it does in his native New England. He is not an obvious outsider but he never fully blends in.
‘What you need,’ Berghelm says, leaning back slightly, voice lower, more confidential, ‘is to get your head out of the pressure loop.’
‘What I need…’ says Cayne, looking up, ‘…is to continue doing my work.’
‘I beg to differ,’ says Berghelm. ‘You clearly need a break.’ He opens a drawer. Takes out a slim black card. Slides it across the desk. There is no writing on it. No logo.
Cayne does not touch the card at first. ‘What is it?’
Berghelm smiles. He is relaxed, and his friendliness seems genuine – even though he knows it is not. ‘It’s access to my facility in the FEZ. It’s discreet. A place to unwind.’
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