A novel idea for Burntisland IT programmer

‘King’ by Tom Locke (56), of the town’s Harbour Place, tells the comic tale of Vince Kingmyle, a rather dubious character who has big plans for his golf tourism promotion company in Edinburgh.

Although most of the story is based in Edinburgh, Fife also features in it, with Tom explaining much of the action is based upon his own previous experiences.

It is published by Roundfire Books, part of the John Hunt Publishing group, and is available in paper or e-reader format through Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/King-Tom-Locke/dp/1785352075/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1453042141&sr=1-1

Tom said: “The book is loosely based on a character I met a while ago in my life. I’d long had it in mind that he would make a classic comic anti-hero and I had so many episodes in my head of cringeworthy things he’d done (imagine a hybrid of Captain Mainwaring and David Brent). It was just a case of trying to make it a complete narrative with a storyline, as opposed to a series of sketches.

“It only took me about three or four months to write. I found it quite easy because there was so much that I could base on reality. A lot of it is still made up around scenarious I could imagine him being involved in.”

Although this is Tom’s first novel, last year he published ‘Life in the Sauna,’ an account of the time he spent on a voluntary project installing and teaching IT systems in the African country of Eritrea during the 1990s.

“That gave me the writing bug, so I decided to retire from my day job to concentrate full time on that,” he said.