How intrepid Hull man’s travels through Africa and a real-life threat of ambush and abduction inspired his first thriller

There is no first-class air travel or staying in luxury hotels when James Marr goes off to see the world.

When Hull-born James, former director of the city-based family shipping company J Marr Ltd, wants to experience a place, he “tries to get under its skin a bit”. Thus you will find him motorbiking or at the wheel of a practical but not comfortable 4x4 to explore “the places in between”.

Having lived for a number of years in York and newly moved to Beverley, James has covered more than 130,000 miles through Africa and the Americas by both motorcycle and 4x4 vehicle. He has written three books about his adventures, contributed articles to a number of motoring magazines and shares his overlanding adventures through his website, latitude14.com

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Kill At First Light is his first attempt at fiction, although it has much of its basis in fact, including a close call with al Qaeda. The book was conceived while driving through West Africa during a period of increasing jihadist activity.

Tuareg people - semi-nomadic herders and traders living in Northern Mali and across its borders in Niger - warned James, his wife and the two friends they were travelling with against driving certain routes in the east of the country. Two weeks later, a group of European travellers had their vehicles ambushed by al Qaeda in the Maghreb.

James, who first caught the travel bug from a cross-Sahara trip “years and years ago”, said: “I decided to drive around Africa, starting at a music festival in Timbuktu. We drove down from Yorkshire in our pick-up truck and picked up a couple of our friends on the way.

“They knew some of the Tuaregs because they had traded Land-Rovers with them in the past. The Tuaregs warned us to be careful about where we were going and advised us not to go on particular routes – and we ignored them at first.

“Half-way to our destination we were sitting around our fire that evening and we decided to heed their advice and we managed to cross the Niger river via a little ferry. I was doing some shopping at a supermarket and there was a TV on in the corner that was reporting on three vehicles being ambushed and the European travellers had been dragged into the desert.

“It was in the area we’d been heading for. We shall be forever grateful for the warning we received from the Tuaregs we met.

“The shocking and brutal outcome to this incident started me thinking about the experience of being abducted in such terrifying circumstances. All control stripped from you. Your life in the balance.”

James said: “When we travel we always go by vehicle. When we drove through the Americas we spent about six years in what was more or less a pick-up with a bit added on the back.

“We try as far as we can to wild camp – we try to get under the skin of it a bit. In Africa, you could place yourself somewhere remote in the bush and then all sorts of people would manifest that you would never otherwise meet.

“You would share stories, share food and maybe offer a lift to them. When you go and stay in a luxury hotel I think you are quite removed from all of that.”

James spent about three years penning his thriller - which includes a brutal abduction in West Africa – his writing coming to a complete halt during Covid-19. He persevered with the book despite early knockbacks when he “had a go at a thriller” some years previously.

“I sent that to some editors for feedback and they told me it was rubbish and to go back to school,” said James. “I eventually sent Kill At First Light off to an editor who had originally trashed my story and he said, for a first draft, it was really very good.”

The author said it was a fun process, compiling his own experiences and that of experts in different fields, to bring the novel to fruition and it was exciting to now see it published - it is available to buy on Amazon. “Some of the research was fascinating,” he said.

“I spent some time with a former policewoman, the first female head of Scotland Yard’s hostage rescue unit. She moved on from there and set herself up as a private consultant in recovering hostages from all over the world.”

Though he was too busy when working for J Marr Ltd to spend time writing, it again brought experiences that he can now draw on. “I was involved in running a fleet of survey ships - we were operating all over the world with different clients – and I met all sorts of different people. A lot of that is great inspiration for characterisation.”

James, who is 10,000 words into a sequel and planning more travel next year, around Eastern Europe, said: “I’ve started getting a few reviews back from the book. It’s early days and I do feel some trepidation about how it will be received.

“The competition in this genre is considerable. There are a lot of talented writers out there.”