Newsroom memories from the 197os have inspired a former regional daily journalist’s new murder thriller novel.

Richard Cox, left, has called on his 15 years spent working at the Derby Telegraph and Nottingham Evening Post, basing many characters in A Fatal Drug on people he worked with or met.

Set in the early 1970s, A Fatal Drug explores an era of newspaper printing and reporting before computers, the internet and mobile phones.

Richard worked at the Telegraph from 1970 to 1978 before moving to the Post, where he worked as both a sub-editor and business editor, until 1985.

Richard, who writes under the name Tony R. Cox, later went on to a career in public relations consultancy.

A Fatal Drug is published by Fahrenheit Press, and follows his self-published 2014 debut First Dead Body.

Richard told HTFP: “Many of the character in A Fatal Drug are based on people I worked with and met. Clearly it is all fiction, but I hope that there is a resonance among journalists, especially those who worked in those remarkable years.

“I was influenced by some remarkable writers and investigative reporters during an era that I now see as the absolute peak of regional newspapers before computers, then instant communications took over.

“It seemed to me that those were days when the story mattered more than profit; when the readers were the most important reason for working long hours on battered typewriters before tramping cold, wet and windy streets.”