Adam Simcox (Law, 1998, Fylde) primarily works as a film maker but has also turned his hand to writing and has recently published his first novel 'The Dying Squad.'

'Studying at Lancaster was one of those ground shaking, life-defining events you never forget, and never want to. For a boy from a Lincolnshire village of two hundred people, there was always the possibility that a vibrant campus like Lancaster’s would have been intimidating, but it never felt that way; right from the start, it felt like home.

University always struck me as the sort of place where you figured out what you didn’t want to do as much as what you did. That’s certainly what happened studying Law, which was never quite the right fit for me. It was a great degree to have though, and proved invaluable when I travelled and lived abroad. It was working in Vancouver — and being exposed to their film industry — where I got the writing/filmmaking bug. When I got back to the UK I studied for an MA in TV & Documentary Production. From there, I wrote and directed three feature films (the first of which sold to Netflix), numerous music videos, and founded a commercial film production company, going on to work with Unilever, McLaren, Barclays, Slaughter and May and Primark.

Ironically, it was when I produced a documentary series that the writing bug flared up again. A scientist had applied to join Mars One – a start-up company that aimed to send a team of scientists on a one-way trip to Mars. I thought it’d make a great film, but knew it wasn’t something I could pull off on a low budget basis. Instead, I wrote a novel based on the premise. The literary world was, outrageously, unmoved. The next two novels I wrote met with a similar response. I racked up close to a 150 rejections on my search for a literary agent and a publishing deal.

It was with The Dying Squad that I finally struck gold. Within a month of finishing it I managed to score an agent, and a three-book deal. Set in the Lincolnshire of my youth, The Dying Squad stars Joe Lazarus, a detective who has to solve his own murder. It’s sort of Line of Duty, cross-stitched with Ghost, with a side order of Life on Mars. It’s the first in a series, so expect Lancaster to pop up in a future spectral investigation…'