Salman Shaheen on Murder & Free Will in Debut Novel ‘Freebourne’

Salman Shaheen’s debut novel Freebourne has already made waves before its official release.

Set to release on October 28, 2025, this murder mystery is already an Amazon bestseller, ranking ahead of Martina Cole, Ken Follett and Ann Cleeves’ new books.

Set in a near-future English town, Freebourne blends thriller suspense with big questions about free will and the accelerating march of technology.

Born in Norwich, Salman Shaheen is a politician and journalist, and although his move into fiction marks a striking new chapter, his creative roots run deep.

He is the grandson of Mysore-born writer and Urdu literature pioneer Mumtaz Shirin, and his own literary ambitions have now taken form in a gripping debut that is already resonating with readers.

In an exclusive interview with DESIblitz, Salman Shaheen spoke about the inspiration behind Freebourne, how his experiences shaped the story, and what readers can expect from this thought-provoking novel.

What inspired you to write Freebourne, and which stories shaped its tone?

I’ve always been drawn to these kinds of dark, speculative stories that question the pace of technology and what it means for human society and human nature.

These believable futures, just one step removed from where we are now, which we can easily imagine, and because we can easily imagine them, they are all the more terrifying.

The sorts of worlds dreamed up by Charlie Brooker in Black Mirror or Kazuo Ishiguro in Never Let Me Go.

In Freebourne, AI has progressed beyond where we are now, and it can change the way we think and feel and experience reality.

The protagonist, Dr Harry Coulson, is a MindTech entrepreneur who is working on an AI device that allows people to see into their most traumatic memories and heal pain.

That kind of technology has huge potential for good, just as AI does today, but needless to say, things don’t go quite as he hoped, especially when he discovers the body of a murdered woman, and there’s a real dark side to this technological progress, which Freebourne explores.

Like a lot of speculative fiction, it’s not so much about imagining these far-future worlds; it’s about making readers question what’s happening right now around us.

How did advice from your late mentor shape the way you approached Freebourne?

Freebourne is a page-turner, but it’s written to leave you thinking after the last page has been turned.

It is a very philosophical thriller. It asks big questions about human nature and society. It asks what technology means for human freedom, and it questions what we are in our state of nature.

“Are we inherently good or bad, or are we products of our environment?”

It takes in Jean Jaques Rousseau and Thomas Hobbes, as well as the age-old battle between science and faith over progress and free will.

All of that could be quite esoteric, but it’s not, because these ideas have been smuggled very subtly into a page-turning thriller and the conventions of a murder mystery.

And it’s thanks to Jill Paton Walsh’s advice that I thought about the murder mystery genre as a vehicle for these bigger ideas, because it’s the best way to get people to read them.

How has your Grandmother’s legacy influenced your own writing and storytelling?

I never met my grandmother.

Sadly, she passed away before I was born. But her love of literature, of language, of storytelling, was passed on to my father, who became an English teacher in the UK, and through him to me.

I think I was probably about 6 years old and he was reading me Shakespeare and Tolkien and extolling the virtues of a good book and it just ignited this passion in me for writing that has never gone away.

I’ve always written stories from an early age. And for many years after, my main outlet for my writing was journalism.

But I’m so excited now at last to be releasing my debut novel.

Why do you think murder mysteries and thrillers are perfect for exploring societal questions?

Because people read them.

I’ve always thought that if we can get people questioning the nature of human society, we might just have a chance to change it for the better.

But I think for these ideas to be popular, they need to be accessible, and what’s more accessible than a good old murder mystery?

Well, maybe a romance novel, but I’m not sure that would be quite as suitable thematically and it’s not my cup of chai!

How did you come up with the opening scene, and what do you hope it makes readers feel?

The novel opens with the discovery of a young woman lying dead in the snow. It’s a claustrophobic scene. Very shocking and disorientating.

So you come into the novel exactly as the main character does.

In some ways, of course, Freebourne starts out in a pretty classic way. It’s an age-old story, a stranger arriving in a new town to start a new life and the whole town distrusting them.

The stakes become really high because our protagonist, Harry Coulson, arrives on the night the town of Freebourne witnesses its first murder in over a century.

“So it’s this huge, shocking upheaval both for Harry and for the town itself, and it throws everything out of balance for everyone.”

And that’s something I do to readers a few times throughout the novel.

Just when you think you’ve worked out what’s going on, just when you’re finding your comfort zone, I pull the rug from under your feet.

I want to keep readers guessing and I can’t wait to hear if they did guess the twist or not.

How do you see AI shaping human society in your book and our present reality?

In the near future world of Freebourne, AI can literally change the way we think and feel. And that has tremendous potential.

Imagine you’re grieving, you’ve faced this unimaginable loss, and you just can’t go on.

Well, Harry Coulson in Freebourne is building a device that can cure that pain, and it could be a panacea, better than any drug ever invented.

But what if that device gets into the wrong hands? What if it could be used to take away freedom of thought? What if it changes what it means to be human?

In our own society, the same dichotomy exists between the potential and the perils of technology moving at a pace faster than it ever has in human history, faster than we can understand it.

Even today, AI is changing the way we think and act and work. It’s making human society more efficient and productive than ever before.

But at the same time, it’s rendering jobs people thought would be around forever obsolete.

This is hugely damaging for those people who’ve worked their whole lives in these industries. It’s also creating a colossal challenge for young people.

Entry-level jobs have fallen by a third since ChatGPT was invented.

Algorithms now tell us what to read and watch and what thoughts and ideas we are exposed to online and that changes the way we perceive the world, often for the worse.

So there’s tremendous potential, but also great danger, even for today’s society.

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, said of the launch of GPT-5, that he’s scared of what he’s created, likening it to the Manhattan Project.

I’m a great believer in technology. But it needs guardrails, or it can do far more harm than good.

Freebourne is a cautionary tale about the future. But look around you. It’s happening now.

How does your experience as a politician inform your portrayal of ambition and power in the book?

I’d like to think the London politics I’m involved in is a bit less murky than the world of Freebourne.

I mostly work on environmental policies and campaign to save allotments!

But being in politics, I absolutely had to include a politician as one of the characters. A local MP who exploits the tragic situation and this poor girl’s murder to his own advantage.

It’s incredibly Machiavellian. And being political, I read the news every day, and I see politicians on the national stage every day, exploiting what they can for their own advantage.

Just look at what Nigel Farage has done over the small boats, whipping up so much hatred against some of the most vulnerable people on the planet, all for his own political gain.

He should be ashamed, as should the politician in my novel.

How does it feel to see a positive response before its release?

I’m so excited that Freebourne has become an Amazon bestseller both in the UK and the US.

As a debut novelist with a small independent publisher, I never imagined it would take off in such a way and compete with all these huge household names everyone has heard of.

I’m really pleased so many people are taking a chance on Freebourne before they’ve even read it.

“And when they do, well, I hope they’ll be left gasping at just the moment I think they will.”

And I hope they’ll be left thinking long after they’ve turned the final page.

And then I hope they’ll tell their friends and family to read it too because the twist will absolutely blow their minds.

Without giving spoilers, what’s one twist or moment in Freebourne you think will leave readers talking?

Oh, I definitely can’t tell you that. All I can say is you won’t see it coming. And it’s never been
done in fiction before.

With Freebourne, Salman Shaheen has crafted more than just a gripping murder mystery.

The novel pushes readers to reflect on the pace of change, the fragility of choice, and the future we are hurtling towards.

For a politician and journalist so deeply engaged with the issues shaping our world, fiction has become another way to probe truths and spark debate.

Set to release on October 28, Freebourne has already enjoyed early success and it shows there is a hunger for stories that entertain while asking difficult questions.

Salman Shaheen’s debut is a bold first step into fiction, and one that suggests his literary journey is only just beginning.