Summer 1930 and Walter Bruce is told he has a terminal disease. With nursing care and an easier job he could have five more years. With neither he may not see out the year. But he’s got a wife to keep – one too selfish and idle to be his nurse.

When he finds out she’s been deceiving him about her past for years he comes to a stark decision; if she won’t take care of him he’ll have to take care of her – for good. He plans her removal like one of the chess problems he loves. It will be the perfect murder; he’ll get away with it and enjoy his last few years in comfort.

But his carefully laid plans unravel, entangling him in a slowly closing trap where truth and lies become confused…

Set in between-the-wars Liverpool, Stalemate is a gripping tale of moral choices and terrible punishment.

Alan Hamilton finds that real events, where there is a mystery or something unexplained, leave so much to the imagination they give the writer of fiction license to make it up. At heart he’s a conspiracy theorist though his head tells him accident is usually more likely – albeit far less interesting.

As an antidote to the urge to write creatively, Alan is a publisher’s editor for non-fiction, academic books and journal articles. He lives by the sea in the South West of the UK. His hobbies are cooking and cryptic crosswords in the national newspapers, winning first prize twice in ten years.

In 2020 Stalemate has been shortlisted for the First Novel Prize.

Hamilton evokes the era very well, weaving the atmosphere and practical details seamlessly into the narrative. At every turn one is struck by the contrast between the 1930s and the present day, especially in terms of communication technology and social mobility. Although phone calls were traceable from public call boxes, detectives had little other than their wits and circumstantial evidence to help them solve crimes. The essential story, however, is timeless. I particularly liked the production values and cover design of this book – the chess board in a subdued, slightly sinister colour way, with an outline of a dead body and a splash of blood, is very effective. See the full review here.
– Historical Novel Society

Stalemate was featured as one of Bookbag's Top Ten Self-Published Books for 2014 here.

Stalemate reached the final ten in the 2020 First Novel price. The organisers said, ‘With Stalemate, I most loved the dispassionate manner in which the narrator tells a quite horrifying story.’

Download the Advance Information (AI) Sheet here.

Stalemate

Alan Hamilton

Paperback

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