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
THE COALITION’S PUBLIC SPENDING CUTS: TOO QUICK, TOO FAST
The Coalition Government’s public spending cutbacks have provoked much outrage. A lot of that has been directed at the economic case for the cutbacks with observers arguing that reductions on this scale are unjustified and run counter to the imperative to stimulate an economy through deficit finance at a time ...
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REVIEW OF CAROL CRAIG’S THE TEARS THAT MADE THE CLYDE (ARGYLL PUBLISHING £8.99)
Glasgow, Scotland’s largest city is a health promotion and social care professional’s nightmare. In spite of hundreds of millions of pounds spent on programmes and a plethora of initiatives targeted at poor health and lifestyle, the city stubbornly remains at the bottom of the table when it comes to bad ...
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MESSY COMPROMISES
Imagine a man aged over 50 who is grossly overweight and eating a salt and vinegar saturated fried take-away fish supper, washed down with a sugary, high calorie soft drink. Having vociferously consumed the fish supper our man proceeds to open a can of strong lager and accompanies this by ...
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BEYOND THE THERAPUETIC SOCIETY
According to a report in the Observer, almost one person in five in the UK has consulted a counsellor or psychotherapist (Observer 1st August 2010). This is a remarkable transformation in a country which until very recently was renowned for it’s stoical bearing characterised by the stiff upper lip and ...
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THE DRUG LAWS AND THE RUSH TO REFORM
There is a growing impetus to reform and liberalise the UK and international drug laws; these being widely regarded as ineffectual in terms of combating drug use. Those arguing for reform make several points. The first is that the existing drug laws are grossly hypocritical in that tobacco which kills ...
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THE BIG SOCIETY AND THE THIRD SECTOR
Over the next few months as public spending cuts really start to take effect expect to hear much about services currently being run by the public sector being ‘handed’ over to the voluntary or ‘third’ sector. This idea is also in line with the government’s current rhetoric about the “Big ...
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