WRITER Robin Triggs has drawn on his experiences as a Bodleian Library security guard to write a thriller set in the Antarctic.

Mr Triggs, who has worked at the world-famous Oxford University library for the past decade, knows just how tense it can be staying alert through the small hours.

The author has now created nail-biting levels of suspense in his debut novel Night Shift, set in a deserted mining base in Antarctica.

The thriller focuses on newly appointed security chief Anders Nordvelt, who arrives just as an act of sabotage threatens the project.

The novel follows the security boss’s plight as he is pushed to his limits in a fight for vengeance and survival.

Mr Triggs, who is inspired by science fiction writer Philip K Dick, is now working on sequels.

He said in a Q&A featured at the end of the thriller: “Anders, the protagonist of Night Shift, arrived almost fully-formed in my head and I guess that means there’s a lot of myself in there.

“I spent a lot of time and many drafts thinking about his history and back story and how he ended up in Antarctica at this particular time, in this particular world.

“Like all writing there’s a feedback loop: your character helps to create his world and that world, in turn, shapes the character.

“Night Shift is the first in a planned trilogy, so I’m busy on its sequels. They look at how the isolated mining base at the heart of the first novel develops into a city, with its new inhabitants not always pleased to find themselves in a new, half-built settlement in a barren wilderness.”

Mr Triggs, who also works as a proofreader, studied archaeology at Queen’s University, Belfast before launching his writing career.

The author, who has just become a father, has also been chairman of Abingdon Writers’ group. When he is not writing he enjoys turning out for the Bodleian Library’s cricket team, and is proud of once bowling out Birdsong author Sebastian Faulks.

Mr Triggs said he considered himself a writer of

“speculative fiction because I’m always asking things like ‘what if that’s true? What will that mean for society?’”

Night Shift is published by Flame Tree Press on November 6, price £9.95.