Alan Devey

The son of a coal miner and a caterer, I grew up working class in the divided England of the 1980s. Since 2004 I have self-published numerous works of literary fiction while, in 2015, I completed a Creative Writing MA at London’s Metropolitan University.

While completing my Masters the seed for the Alice Ravenhall crime series was planted by a visiting literary agent. She bemoaned the lack of decent mystery fiction involving a mature, female protagonist. Inspired, I researched and wrote ‘Beyond The Bailey’ over the following years and the novel was finally published by Revolutionary Press in late 2022 after 150+ rejections from agents and publishers.

In the book my protagonist is a renowned QC (now KC); a fixture of the British legal establishment who often works at the Old Bailey. She subsequently decides to investigate a mystery outside of the court-room for the first time, but soon finds herself embroiled in a twenty year-old secret and a web of betrayal that will endanger her life.

I am currently working on book two in the Alice Ravenhall series while, away from crime fiction, my blog on writing and other matters can be found on my website. I am a regular presenter for the Comes With MP3s music show on Radio Woking as well as a committee member of London Comedy Writers; a grass-roots group that conducts table reads for budding sitcom and sketch writers. My own dramatic and comedic scripts have placed in a number of competitions, most recently as Runner Up in the Comedy Pilot Screenplay category at the Lit Laughs International Comedy Festival of 2023.