A NEWPORT author has just published his first fiction books about a Welsh detective.

Alan Roderick, a 70-year-old man from Handpost who used to work as a French and German teacher, has written 12 non-fictional books about Newport and Gwent.

He has now taken the plunge and written about Astrid, a red-haired private eye who moved to South Wales as a child and used to play as an outside half for the Welsh Women’s Rugby team.

Now, she is fighting crime on the streets of the newly independent Welsh republic.

The first book, Astrid investigates, is a collection of twenty-one short stories. Amongst others, the brave detective gets to the bottom of strange goings-on involving Roman soldiers in the town of Caerleon. She survives a shoot-out with Argentinian gangsters and tracks down a missing Miss Cymru in a wintry Venice.

In the second book, Astrid and the Golden Lovespoons, the detective sets out to find the truth behind a path littered with dead bodies which then disappear and no one believes her when she tells them.

“The book, which is full of humour, is set in an alternative reality” Mr Roderick said. “It’s set in Newport, but it’s not Newport as we know it.

“Astrid is a character full of vibrancy. She is a unique detective.”

Mr Roderick, who studied in Duffryn High School, first came up with the idea of Astrid in 2004, when he took a creative writing course. “I wrote about her for an assignment and, since then, I haven’t been able to stop writing about her,” he said.

Mr Roderick taught English in Germany for five years, before moving back to Newport in 1977. He is the chair of the Cwtsh Arts Centre in Handpost and organises an open mic poetry night at the Murenger House in Newport’s High Street every month.

Both books cost £8,99 each, plus postage and packing. You can get copies from Alan Roderick at: alanroderick11@yahoo.co.uk or write to Alan Roderick, 84 Llanthewy Road, Newport, Gwent, NP20 4LA. They are also available as Ebooks at Amazon, Kobo and IBooks for around £4,00 each.