I retired in 1994 after a career as a Chartered Mechanical Engineer and finally as a Superintending Inspector in the Health and Safety Executive. Up untill then my publishing experience was limited to technical reports, journals and conference proceedings. This gave me the confidence to venture into the commercial world of publishing. My first book, published in 2005 was The Factory Inspectors - A Legacy of the Industrial Revolution, ISBN 9 780752 435695,now out of print. This experience turned my attention towards self publishing, and thanks to the facilities offered by LULU, I published Follow the Arrow and then the Unrelenting Machine, which is a revision of The Factory Inspectors. My next book on Rudyard Kipling was originally an EPub and is also available in print. Having now utilized all three methods of publishing I can confidently say that self publishing offers a great solution to would be authors. The Last Affair is my first attempt at publishing a novel.