By REBECCA DIXON

Last updated 17:34, Thursday, 21 August 2008

A FORMER pupil at Hexham’s Queen Elizabeth High School has published his first novel.

The Quick and the Dead has been penned by Matthew John Lee, a pupil at QEHS from 1979 to 1983 and a choirboy at Hexham Abbey from 1973 until 1978.

His parents and other members of his family still live in Hexham and he is widely known by many friends and acquaintances in the area.

Matthew went on to take a degree in mathematics at University College, Cardiff, following which he embarked on a career as a teacher.

Apart from brief spells in this country and Saudi Arabia, his working life has been spent in Africa, but he has recently moved to take up a new post in Mumbai, India, at the Ecole Mondiale.

The alienation from his homeland, plus the exposure to different cultures, is evident in his novel, which combines a sense of loss with a sense of optimism over the prevailing redemptive power of the human spirit.

In the plot, all human life in Great Britain is extinguished by suicide bombers who release a deadly and speedily effective smallpox virus at a multitude of strategic points across the land.

The book looks at how three British expatriates respond to this catastrophe and the way it results in a profound change to their lives.

The Quick and the Dead is obtainable from Cogito Books, Hexham, in hardback, price £13.99