I started writing full length novels sixteen years ago. I had early successes with short stories and in 2002, writing as Alan Frost, I was shortlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association’s Debut Dagger Award.

I sent my first novel to Random House. The MD (yes, the MD!) spent time editing my first few chapters. He wrote to me saying that he liked it and that it should be published, but he could not place it because it “didn’t fit any of his genres”. A year later I submitted another*, this time to the Darley Anderson Agency. One of their agents phoned and said those magic words ‘we would like an exclusive...’ If you are a new writer like I was, don’t be fooled. Nothing else happened for weeks. Then I was told that mine had been shortlisted with six others, but not selected as the book they would take forwards for publication. I wasn’t surprised. In my rush to get it out I had fudged the last few chapters. We live and learn....

I have reviewed books for technical publications and written articles for professional books and magazines. Much of my working life has been spent writing commercial and technical reports for clients. I edited and published company newsletters. I have worked in the Americas, Greece, Sweden, Togo, Sudan and Ethiopia, specialising in the construction of tunnels, caverns and slopes in rock, later working on satellite remote sensing, geothermal energy and deep drilling. I set up an office in Berkshire for a US-owned company and ran teams of geologists and engineers. This experience does not make a writer, though it helps to broaden horizons.

After leaving school I spent a few years as a cadet and then a police officer (a motorcyclist and a police marksman). I resigned because I wanted to become an engineer. I work on the shop floor of an engineering works in the day and attended college in the evenings. Then I read Mining Geology at the Royal School of Mines, Imperial College, London and became a professional Engineering Geologist. Now I write.

*I have exhumed this novel and I am now rewriting it as Black Pines