Game Show by Allie Cresswell - Book Tour
Game Show
It
is 1992, and in a Bosnian town a small family cowers in their basement. The
Serbian militia is coming - an assorted rabble of malcontents given authority
by a uniform and inflamed by the idea that they’re owed something, big-time,
and the Bosnians are going to pay. When they get to the town they will ransack
the houses, round up the men and rape the women. Who’s to stop them? Who’s to
accuse them? Who will be left, to tell the tale?
Meanwhile,
in a nondescript northern UK town a group of contestants make their way to the
TV studios to take part in a radical new Game Show. There’s money to be won,
and fun to be had. They’ll be able to throw off their inhibitions and do what
they want because they’ll all be in disguise and no-one will ever know.
In
a disturbing denouement, war and game meld into each other as action and
consequence are divided, the words ‘blame’ and ‘fault’ have no meaning and
impunity reigns .
Game
Show asks whether the situation which fostered the Bosnian war, the genocide in
Rwanda, the rise of so-called Islamic State in Syria and the ethnic cleansing
in Myanmar could ever happen in the West. The answer will shock you.
Purchase from Amazon UK -
Excerpt
The Bosnian sections of Game Show are related through
the eyes of a ten year old Bosnian boy, but I thought it was important to give
an insight into the self-styled Serbian militia who were roaming the
countryside exacting terrible atrocities upon the Bosnian Muslims. What was their
motivation? How could they justify
what they were doing?
A Bosnian woman is in a wooded area when she comes
across a group of Serbian militia. She conceals herself in a pile of leaves and
listens to the soldiers’ conversation.
One of the soldiers, fairly young, with a distinctive
accent which distinguished him as coming from a far region of the country,
seemed to be taking objection to the way the others had behaved at the farm.
‘She would have given us the chicken,’ he said. ‘You
didn’t have to shoot her.’
‘Shoot ‘em or fuck ‘em, that’s our policy,’ replied an older soldier. ‘And I
didn’t fancy the old cunt.’
They all laughed.
‘You’re doing that wrong,’ another voice said, through
the mirth. ‘You’re supposed to get the guts out before you cook it.’
‘Bugger that,’ the older soldier replied. ‘Pass the grog
over.’
‘She was harmless,’ the young voice began.
‘She is now!’ another voice put in.
‘A civilian,’ the provincial soldier went on. ‘It’s the
men we’re supposed to be looking for. Even in war, there are rules.’
‘There aren’t any rules,’ the older man snapped. ‘That’s
the point. They never played by any rules. Those bastards have walked roughshod
over us for generations. Time they got a taste of their own medicine.’
‘She never did you any harm,’ the young man
remonstrated.
‘That’s true,’ another voice agreed, quietly.
‘Jesus Christ! Now there’s two of you at it!’ the older
man shouted. He got up from his position, presumably close to the fire, and
walked a few paces across the clearing to a spot about three feet from the
woman hidden in the undergrowth. He fumbled through his clothing; she could
hear him breathing heavily, then the spatter and hiss of hot urine on frosted
leaves and its distinctive smell mingled with the acrid smell of wood smoke.
She kept her eyes closed. She held her breath. Her heart beat like a mad thing.
‘Don’t we have to… report back?’ the younger man asked,
quietly, addressing one of the other soldiers. ‘Aren’t we… answerable?’
‘Who to?’ shouted the soldier, with derision, over his
shoulder. ‘You going to write a report, are you? Fill in a form? Who you going
to send it to? No-one’s interested, lad!’
‘We answer to each other,’ another voice said. ‘Pass
that bottle, will you?’
The older soldier finished urinating and returned to the
fire. He must have settled close to the younger man. She could hear the crackle
of the leaves and the snap of a twig as he sat on them. She guessed him to be
of large build. When he spoke, his voice was lower, but, in its decreased
volume, had increased vehemence. ‘Look, lad. What we do is this: we take the
opportunity, see? It’s only what’s been denied us for years and years. It’s
only fair. Opportunities come and we take them. This chicken here, it was there
in her yard and we took it - too good an opportunity to pass up on, see? You’ll
think so, in a bit, when you’ve eaten it, believe me!’
‘Yes, about the chicken, I agree, but…’
‘We signed nothing, we promised nothing. We’re what they
call self-styled, self-regulated troops. We do what we want, take what we want.
But we do it together. These lads here and me, we’ve been together months, and,
believe me, we’ve taken every opportunity that’s been offered, haven’t we
lads?’ Guffaws of agreement echoed around the clearing. ‘But we’ve done it
together.’
‘We can’t stand in front of a herd of bastard Turks and
start arguing about whether we should shoot ‘em or cut their dicks off or poke
their eyes out or take them out to dinner! Time we’ve finished arguing about it
they’d have wrung our necks with their bare hands and raped our mothers. That’s
what they’re like!’ interjected one of the other soldiers. ‘You haven’t been
with us long but you’ll soon find out. They’d stab you in the back soon as look
at you!’
‘That’s always been our problem in the past,’ put in another
voice. ‘You just look at your history. We’ve always been too busy arguing
amongst ourselves and that’s why we’ve always been the underdogs. It’s always
made us weak.’ He stopped to light a cigarette. The woman heard the spurt of
flame and the crackle of the tobacco as it smouldered. In a juxtaposition of
emotion, it reminded her of her husband, an action and a scent so
characteristic of him in her memory. ‘Now we’re working together, it’s made us
more powerful than them. The boot’s on the other foot, now. We’re the
conquerors. And it feels good.’
‘That’s right,’ the older man went on. ‘We do what has
to be done. We look each other in the eye and we keep our mouths shut. We don’t
ask questions, we don’t worry about the issues, we don’t think about the
consequences. They’re nothing to do with us. And we’re not going to start.
D’you hear what I’m saying?’ He lowered his voice even further, but in the
deadly stillness of the windless winter woodland, every word carried. ‘Soon as
you start having doubts, that’s when you wind up dead. ‘Specially if you start
spreading them about. You get me?’
‘I suppose…’
‘You mustn’t worry. Do what you like, take what you
want. Some of the women are quite pretty, really, and they don’t put up much of
a fight.’
‘Sometimes they do!’ sniggered one of the men.
‘No-one will ever know. That’s the point, see? Except
us. And we’re not telling, are we lads?’ Snorts of lascivious laughter
accompanied their shared denials.
‘That chicken cooked yet?’ The old soldier got up and
approached the fire. ‘Nearly,’ he said, after inspection. ‘You can have a
breast, lad. Like that, will you? Or a thigh?’
‘Finger-lickin’ good,’ tittered one of the men.
About Allie Cresswell
I have been
writing stories since I could hold a pencil and by the time I was in Junior
School I was writing copiously and sometimes almost legibly.
I did, however,
manage a BA in English and Drama from Birmingham University and an MA in
English from Queen Mary College, London. Marriage and motherhood put my writing
career on hold for some years until 1992 when I began work on Game Show.
In the meantime I
worked as a production manager for an educational publishing company, an
educational resources copywriter, a bookkeeper for a small printing firm, and
was the landlady of a country pub in Yorkshire, a small guest house in Cheshire
and the proprietor of a group of boutique holiday cottages in
Cumbria. Most recently I taught English Literature to Lifelong learners.
Nowadays I write as full time as three grandchildren, a husband, two Cockapoos and a large garden will permit.
Nowadays I write as full time as three grandchildren, a husband, two Cockapoos and a large garden will permit.
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/alliescribbler/
Website - www.allie-cresswell.com
0 Comments
Please try not to spam posts with the same comments over and over again. Authors like seeing thoughtful comments about their books, not the same old, "I like the cover" or "sounds good" comments. While that is nice, putting some real thought and effort in is appreciated. Thank you.