Policing in a broken future.

Policing in a Broken Future: What Without Fear or Favour Tells Us About Justice on the Brink

When I open Without Fear or Favour and Other Stories, I don’t just introduce tension; I sound a warning. In the title tale, I take you into a near-future society where democracy has collapsed. The Union of the United Kingdom has fractured into rival zones. Policing has splintered from a unified public service into a patchwork of regional bailiwicks. Through Alex, a divisional commander straining to keep order as everything unravels, I portray a haunting portrait of law enforcement teetering on the edge of collapse.

This future strikes me as chillingly plausible. At a moment when global faith in police institutions is eroding and misinformation races ahead of facts, Without Fear or Favour shifts from fiction to urgent cautionary tale. I show how a vacuum of political authority and the decay of central governance open the door to localised tyranny. In this world, justice is improvised rather than imposed, and commanders like Alex must juggle real safety concerns with political optics and relentless media scrutiny.

I’m not only examining operational breakdown; I’m tracing moral fraying. Alex isn’t a classic hero. He’s pragmatic, exhausted, squeezed between the demands of the politicians above him and the violence exploding below. When one of his officers falls victim to a chilling, ideologically charged ritual killing, Alex gets thrown into a maelstrom of media interference, public outrage, and professional loyalty. His forced compromises drive home the central question I pose: how does one uphold the law when the law itself is in shards?

I didn’t build this setting for dystopian drama alone. Although fictional, it mirrors real-world trends: splintered authority, sensationalist journalism, divided loyalties, and rising grassroots militancy. The story becomes a thought experiment—what if the pillars we rely on (news, justice, community) stop trusting one another?

I offer no tidy solutions. Instead, I position you in the front row, watching a system stretched to breaking, and ask: What does justice mean when it’s a contested narrative? When Alex turns to an informant for leads, he knows he’s playing with fire. When his wife—an influential news anchor—breaks a story that undermines his investigation, we see how personal and public trust have merged into something perilously fragile.

In a collection spanning hard-hitting crime to eerie paranormal tales, I’ve placed Without Fear or Favour at its thematic core. I hold up a mirror to our times, asking if law and truth can endure when institutions fracture inward. The real tension lies not just in bullets or investigations, but in the silence that follows; when justice, accountability, and truth are no longer shared values but battlegrounds. For fans of speculative crime fiction, I promise suspense. For those anxious about the future of justice, I offer a dire forecast. And for everyone, I pose this vital question: in a world veering toward division, who enforces the rules—and at what cost?