ABOUT ALEX
Alex was formerly a CEO of two community based third sector social care organisations in Glasgow. He also spent many years working in the addiction services in the city and has just recently retired. Despite this he still provides a consultancy on social care and community based issues.
Alex’s main interest is writing, and he has had several non-fiction pieces published in newspapers and journals which have been related to his work and career.
Alex published his first novel Deception Road which is a political thriller set in Glasgow last year. It is available on Amazon. Deception Road is the first of a four-part projected quartet of novels centred on the career of MI5 officer, Eddie Macintyre. The second novel in the quartet, Caledonia Snack, will be released this year. The third and fourth novels in the series, Holy Loch and Enchantment and Conspiracy will be published within the next year.
Each book focuses on particular operations which Eddie has been involved in over the past thirty years. Deception Road is set in the present day while Caledonia Smack is set in the early 1990s and centres on drugs, gun, spooks and Irish paramilitaries in Glasgow. Holy Loch is about a Soviet spy ring at the old US nuclear submarine base in Scotland at the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s and finally Enchantment and Conspiracy is set against the background of Eddie being recruited to act as an informer for MI5 on the far left in Glasgow in the late 70s before he became an actual agent for them. Essentially, the quartet is a biography of Eddie based on a few key episodes of his life in the secret world.
Alex also writes a regular blog and various other pieces, mostly but exclusively about the world of intelligence and its impact on all of us which he will be posting regularly on the website.
Alex has a wide range of interests including reading, obviously espionage novels, but he also enjoys history, popular science and books on contemporary politics. He is a keen music fan with a wide-ranging and eclectic taste including jazz, soul, dance, prog rock, punk rock, psychedelic rock and easy listening. He also enjoys walking and dining out. He lives, writes and socialises in Glasgow, a city which is not only his home but which he regards as a “dynamic, vibrant place to write in and about.”
Alex’s main interest is writing, and he has had several non-fiction pieces published in newspapers and journals which have been related to his work and career.
Alex published his first novel Deception Road which is a political thriller set in Glasgow last year. It is available on Amazon. Deception Road is the first of a four-part projected quartet of novels centred on the career of MI5 officer, Eddie Macintyre. The second novel in the quartet, Caledonia Snack, will be released this year. The third and fourth novels in the series, Holy Loch and Enchantment and Conspiracy will be published within the next year.
Each book focuses on particular operations which Eddie has been involved in over the past thirty years. Deception Road is set in the present day while Caledonia Smack is set in the early 1990s and centres on drugs, gun, spooks and Irish paramilitaries in Glasgow. Holy Loch is about a Soviet spy ring at the old US nuclear submarine base in Scotland at the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s and finally Enchantment and Conspiracy is set against the background of Eddie being recruited to act as an informer for MI5 on the far left in Glasgow in the late 70s before he became an actual agent for them. Essentially, the quartet is a biography of Eddie based on a few key episodes of his life in the secret world.
Alex also writes a regular blog and various other pieces, mostly but exclusively about the world of intelligence and its impact on all of us which he will be posting regularly on the website.
Alex has a wide range of interests including reading, obviously espionage novels, but he also enjoys history, popular science and books on contemporary politics. He is a keen music fan with a wide-ranging and eclectic taste including jazz, soul, dance, prog rock, punk rock, psychedelic rock and easy listening. He also enjoys walking and dining out. He lives, writes and socialises in Glasgow, a city which is not only his home but which he regards as a “dynamic, vibrant place to write in and about.”
BOOKS
DECEPTION ROAD
Top MI5 agent Eddie Macintyre and his team are tailing a terrorist cell in Glasgow when a van carrying al-Qaeda activists on a dummy-run explodes in the city-centre, causing mass casualties.
Hours earlier Eddie’s team had confirmed the van as being explosives free. Now he faces the terrifying possibility that his team’s surveillance operation has been sabotaged via an al-Qaeda infiltrated mole.
But suspicion quickly fastens onto Eddie and he is catapulted down a nightmare road of treachery and deception, and Eddie must use all his experience and resources to survive.
BUY NOW
CALEDONIA SMACK
A Police and MI5 raid on a flat in Glasgow led by MI5 officer, Eddie McIntyre, intended to capture a senior IRA commander meeting with a Glasgow drug gang leader, finds instead seven people dead from heroin overdoses.
Against the background of the developing Northern Irish peace process in the early 1990s, an MI5 plot to entrap the IRA with a vicious Glasgow drugs gang leads to gang warfare, overdoses and Eddie’s efforts to extricate himself from the chaos that is unleashed.Reviews
What readers from Amazon are saying
A strong plot, anchored in convincing political, psychological and technical detail. Don't know if Meikle is ex-Secret Service - but it all rings true!
This is gripping stuff – an engaging story very well told. It could be made into an excellent film. The action is exciting and the scenarios are inventive and interesting. I look forward to reading more from this exciting new novelist.
This is gripping stuff – an engaging story very well told. It could be made into an excellent film. The action is exciting and the scenarios are inventive and interesting. I look forward to reading more from this exciting new novelist.
LATEST FROM ALEX
REVIEW OF ‘ON INTELLIGENCE: THE HISTORY OF ESPIONAGE AND THE SECRET WORLD’
REVIEW OF ‘ON INTELLIGENCE: THE HISTORY OF ESPIONAGE AND THE SECRET WORLD’ BY JOHN HUGHES-WILSON PUBLISHED BY CONSTABLE £10.99 paperback For anyone who has read my three-part series on The Paradoxes of Spying and would like a more in-depth overview of the intelligence world, you can do no better than pick up ...
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PUT TERROR IN PERSPECTIVE
The recent terrorist attacks in Barcelona, Cambills and Turku in Finland provide a constant reminder of how vulnerable we all are to becoming victims of terrorism. Driving van or cars into people or stabbing them at random on busy city streets is the ‘softest’ of all ‘soft targets.” Although all ...
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BRITAIN’S MI5 AND MI6: WHAT’S IN A NAME
Most people worldwide who have at least a cursory interest in spying and espionage, are familiar with the names MI5 and MI6. And those who have more than a casual interest in the intelligence world are aware that MI5 is the UK’s internal counter-espionage and counter-intelligence service while MI6 is ...
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THE PARADOXES OF SPYING PART 3
Imagine the following scenario: A police drugs unit is about to embark on a raid in a major city. They have in their sights a top-level dealer distributing considerable quantities of heroin and other drugs into a deprived community. The case against the dealer has been prepared for months and ...
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THE PARADOXES OF SPYING 2
In the last blog I explored how keeping a spy or mole in place is a complex and quite murky pursuit. The instant you act on your mole’s information you alert your opponent you have a mole in his ranks, so information derived from the mole has to be heavily ...
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The Paradoxes of Spying Part 1
For all its deception, double-dealing and treachery spying would appear to be straightforward. Side ‘A’ recruits and infiltrates a spy or mole into side ‘B’. Once installed in ‘B’ the mole begins leaking information to ‘A’ to the detriment of ‘B’ and the immense advantage of ‘A’. Simple. And that’s ...
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