Many congratulations to Woking Writers Circle member Alan Dale, who has just published his first novel. The title of his thriller is Theta Double Dot, and publishers Austin Macauley describe it thus:

“Saddled with the project everyone dreaded, Mark Hammond finds himself ensnared in a nightmare that threatens his marriage, career, sanity and, finally, his life. Who are the increasingly violent activists, wreaking havoc, with attacks on petrochemical plants across the UK? Ministerial frustration increases with mounting evidence of police bewilderment. Mark’s problems expand to include an Alaskan community facing annihilation as the Arctic Sea threatens to overwhelm their homeland. Desperate for time and managerial support, he finds himself enmeshed in the ultimate horror; a race against time, to a potentially suicidal showdown. Not even he envisages the terrible endgame.”

We know Alan fairly well, of course, but it’s always useful to read the publisher’s biog: “Alan Dale is a graduate mechanical engineer, with project management experience in the petrochemical industry. He began writing a few years ago, in his fifties, by enrolling on the Writers Bureau Comprehensive Writing Course. Alan has since had short stories, articles and features published in magazines and online. He lives in Surrey and is a member of the Woking Writers’ Circle.”

Alan explained further: “When I first received the Writers Bureau prospectus, I looked at all the modules on the Comprehensive Writing Course and noticed the one headed Novel Writing. I thought – dream on! Then I saw something about not having to tackle every subject. Right, I thought, that gets me out of ever having even to try to write a novel. A warm glow of relief suffused me at this point, as it always does when I think I’ve got out of a corner. Loads of assignments down the line, I actually chose …’or write the first chapter of a novel …’ I can’t remember what the alternative was … must have been something about which I knew even less, if that’s possible, like lads’ mags. Anyway, I completed the course, obtained my certificate, then started submitting articles etc. I finally got going on the plot and development a few years later, having plucked up the courage to revisit it. About seven-eight years, one tantalising expression of interest in the first three chapters from an agent and five drafts later, I received an email acceptance from Austin Macauley, offering me my contract. As I subsequently wrote to Peter [WWC chairman], ‘I did what anyone would do in the circumstances – I went out to buy some ant powder!’ (True – I had ants in the kitchen and my mad sense of humour couldn’t resist that one.)

“The title came about when I was sitting in a dynamics lecture, years before any of this, at uni. The lecturer wrote a differential equation of motion on the board, including theta double dot. As he did so, I had the vision of those two dots above the Greek letter being bullet holes, with the bullets coming out towards me. This lay dormant for about 35 years …” Asked how he felt about being a published novelist, Alan added: “If anyone had told me, as I began the course, or before, that I would one day have a novel published, I’d have asked them what they were on!”

You can get hold of a copy of Alan’s novel here