IT has taken 11 years but a former mayor of Towcester has finished his first novel.
Eighty-three-year-old Geoffrey Iley’s action/ thriller Navegator starts in 1993 in Mallorca.
Vasco Valseca is a gifted computer scientist and mathematician whose ancestors include a legendary navigator.
This inherited intuitive skill inspires him to create Navegator, a unique software programme that can pinpoint the exact geographical location of any internet activity.
It is hot property and only one copy exists and Valseca is unaware that his brainchild is the focus of furious international activity.
Mr Iley said: “It was hard work to write the book as it took me 11 years.
“My son-in-law pushed me to finish it as I went through a period when I wrote nothing or when I re-wrote sections of it twice. The only way I could do it was to produce a graph. I knew I had to write a certain amount of words each day to complete the novel.
“Some people have said the book does deserve a sequel and I know I would be able to write the next one quicker.”
Mr Iley, is a qualified engineer and held senior positions in the motor industry.
He and wife Loïs came to Northamptonshire when they retired in 1992.
In 1998, they moved to the centre of Towcester and both became active in local groups with Mr Iley serving on the Town Council and becoming mayor in 2003.
In that year he launched the town’s Midsummer Music Festival and will be involved with this year’s tenth anniversary event.
Navegator will be available from February 23.
