Thriller is first for Ravenscraig man
A writer from Ravenscraig was inspired to pen his own crime thriller novel after watching Jack Reacher.
Lee Adam, a dad-of-two, will have his debut book, Beast & Burden, published next month.
The 38-year-old, who is dad to Paige, 20 and seven-year-old Presley, works as a hire controller at Speedy Hire in Cambuslang, watched the television series Reacher and then mentioned to his wife that he might even read one of the books written by author Lee Child from where the screen version originated.
That led to her picking up the books one by one in charity shops as Lee became engrossed in the tales of the drifter and investigator as he roams across the USA.
Lee explained: “My wife is an avid charity shopper and she ended up pretty much buying every Jack Reacher book that she found, and I worked my way through them. I got quickly addicted to them.
“Then I was watching a documentary and an interview with the author Lee Child and he mentioned that he didn’t publish his first book until he was nearly 40. I was only 36, so I thought I’d give it a bash and write a book.”
He then decided he would have a go himself at an action thriller story and used his time settling his daughter Presley at night to pen it.
“It’s a Taken meets Jack Reacher type of story,” Lee continued. “I took inspiration for it from my older daughter Paige, who’s now 20, when she was a teenager.
“I tried to put the two characters together in a situation where they had to come together and get to know each other a bit better.
“I’ve never tried to write before and had never gave it a thought in my entire life. I had a rough idea of how I wanted the story to be and how it would end.
“Then I just sat down with an open laptop and started writing. I put my younger daughter Presley to bed at night, so I would just type as she drifts off to sleep.
“Sometimes I would still be sitting there into the early hours in the morning, long after she was sleeping. There’s turns and twists in the story that I didn’t see coming myself, and there were times when I thought I’d wrote myself into a corner.
Lee’s story takes place in both Glasgow and Edinburgh and follows an ex-royal Engineer by the name of Amos Fisher, whose daughter Mary is kidnapped by two armed thugs following a break-in at his home.
Amos, who is grieving the death of his wife, finds his dog dead and his daughter gone. He uses her phone, which is needed by a dangerous Scots mob boss, as a bargaining chip for her safe return.
But what is on the phone and who can he trust in this race against time to save his daughter?
The Motherwell man, and former Dalziel High pupil, has already started on his next book, which is going to be part of a trilogy, a psychological thriller about a serial killer.
“With everything that’s going on just now and the first release, I’m struggling to find as much time to write this one,” Lee admits. “But I’ll get there.”
Lee Adam’s Beast & Burden is published by Blossom Spring Publishing and will be available from Amazon in paperback priced £9.75 as well as selected bookshops.