Beast On The Landing by Stephen Williams

They locked him away but he found a new sense of freedom behind the bars

Beast On The Landing follows the experience of investigative journalist, David Blake, who has been going through a lean period with his writing and his editor is insisting he come up with new material fast. His job is on the line but Blake has no idea what he can write about and dreads the thought of looking at the blank screen of his computer.

Taking a break from his office to walk around the streets, Blake discovers what appears to be a discarded journal written by Mark Stevens, a convicted criminal, a name he remembers from his own newspaper covering the story some years before. In desperate need of a new story idea, Blake reads through the handwritten pages and uncovers a dramatic account of life in prison, including the enclosed and secret world of the vulnerable prisoner and sex offender Wings, including stories of gay love and sex, and drug abuse.

In the dog-eared pages that had been left for the trash, Mark Stevens records his thoughts about being sentenced to be a beast on the prison landing. He records events in a rambling prison diary, illustrating the anger, the violence, the isolation, even relationships and sex between inmates. He contrasts this reality of incarceration with the oppression, neglect and threats from authority figures whose work it should be to rehabilitate the prison population and prevent their re-offending. All the while illustrating, without even realising it, the deterioration of his own physical and mental health.

Blake realizes that he has been given a unique insight into the dark side of prison life, a subject he never considered before, and so he begins an investigation to find Stevens and uncover the truth of the manuscript, in the process beginning a harrowing journey he wishes he had never started but one which leads him to a story of survival that contains no self-pity.

This is a unique story, with revelations of offenders and their lives in the dismal world behind prison bars. The book is designed around the theme of David Blake finding and publishing the content of the diary as a fiction book and the first person narrative of Mark Stevens enables us to believe we are experiencing the shocking revelations of his incarceration with him. In keeping with his journalistic instincts, Blake interviews former inmate colleagues of Mark Stevens and then he finds the man himself.

Beast On The Landing is as controversial as it is heartbreaking, and at times is as humorous as it is serious.

Parental guidance is advised, this novel contains adult material.