Former Dundee journalist Sandy McGregor will see his second book hit the shelves next month - after penning a fictional sequel to his true-crime book.

In a rare move, Sandy, who retired as chief reporter of The Courier and Evening Telegraph earlier this year, has written Lawless, a fictional sequel to The Law Killers which tells the stories of murders in Dundee.

Using a real incident as a starting point, Sandy has placed real characters alongside fictional creations for the new book.

He said: "The inspiration for writing Lawless was itself like something from a John Grisham novel.

"I was researching a 30-year-old murder in the library for my first book when I stumbled across a court report from which four sentences, together with a photograph of the victim, had been carefully cut out with a razorblade.

"That intrigued me and immediately struck me as a great jumping off point for a novel."

Lawless starts with investigative reporter Campbell McBride arriving in his home town to sign copies of his bestselling book, only to be confronted about one of the murder cases he has written about - a fictional representation of a real event that happened to Sandy.

In reality, Sandy was signing copies of The Law Killers in a Dundee bookshop when he was questioned by a book-buyer about one of the murder cases in the book.

Coincidentally, the murder in question was the 30-year-old case which inspired him to write Lawless.

Sandy, (65), was chief reporter of The Courier and Evening Telegraph in Dundee for 13 years.

He worked for parent company DC Thomson & Co Ltd for 50 years - joining as an office boy on his 15th birthday.