Roy Bentley credits Bermuda with inspiring his second career.

He moved to the island in 2007 to work for an international shipping company. Four years later he retired, and started writing books as BR Bentley.

Since then he has written four novels. His first two, The Cross and The Bermuda Key, were inspired by the Tucker Cross – the 22-karat gold artefact the marine explorer Teddy Tucker discovered on a shipwrecked Spanish galleon in 1955.

Mr Bentley’s latest release, The Blood Labyrinth, continues his tradition of weaving mysteries into real-life events.

“It’s about a Canadian woman's search for her biological family, which intersects with a police cold case investigation into the 70-year-old death of a fellow on a beach in South Africa,” said the author who was born in the United Kingdom, attended school in South Africa and now lives in Canada.

“The two trails lead to the UK because MI6 have, for years, been trying to keep the dead man's identity secret. All the parties intersect in a little village in the UK called Ewelme. It’s a real village and it's really interesting. I think one of the early Duchesses of Sussex is actually buried in the church.”

Although he never published any of it, he was a prolific poet from a young age. That practice, combined with his habit of “reading an awful lot”, gave him the confidence to attempt a novel.

“I thought, well, if I combine the two, maybe I could write a book,” he said.

Help with his early work came from On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King, the American bestselling author.

Shortly before the pandemic, Mr Bentley returned to school, ultimately earning a master’s degree in novel writing from Middlesex University in London, England.

“I wrote the first book, which turned out to be a lot of fun and the feedback was great. People seem to love it, particularly the descriptions of Bermuda,” he said.

“I kept hearing how they should make a movie of the book, because scenically, it fits and it's a kind of fun story. And then, of course, I realised that if they did that, then maybe they could get Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones to act – there are characters that fit them.”

His knowledge of Bermuda was limited before he came here to work: a distant relative of Mr Bentley’s was born here, and he’d seen The Deep, a 1977 movie that was partially filmed on the island.

“But the opportunity arose to work from Bermuda so that's what I did. And I absolutely loved it. It's truly one of the most remarkable places on the planet,” he said.

“I wandered around the island looking at different things and exploring, and stumbled over Tucker’s Cross in the Maritime Museum and thought, ‘What a fascinating story. Somebody should write a book.’ Scroll forward five years after that, and I thought, OK, maybe that should be the kernel of interest for my first book.”

The longtime runner applied the same mentality to writing that he used to complete marathons.

“It was always a case of ‘Can I finish?’ Or, ‘If I can finish, can I finish under this time?’” he said. “With the book I thought, Well, can I write a book? And then it was, ‘I wonder if anyone would buy it.’ And then the next thing was, ‘I wonder if anyone would actually like it?’ And so it goes and each of those I sort of fed off.”

Although The Bermuda Key is a sequel to The Cross, readers don’t have to have read the first to understand.

His third novel, The Banker’s Box, is a completely different story, set against the backdrop of Canada.

Each book takes about a year to write. Mr Bentley spends a lot of time researching before he starts; travel is often involved.

“I travelled a lot with my work globally, I went to school in South Africa, my family is from the UK originally and I live in Canada. So I use all of that in terms of looking for the places that I want to use, and then I visited all the areas that are in the book. I love the research. The research and the writing are, for me, the fun parts; the marketing of the book, not so much.”

When it comes time to write he follows the process advocated by King of sticking to a routine.

“He talks about sort of going to the same place and sitting down and writing. So I tend to write from early morning till about noon, and then I quit for the day whether I'm doing well or doing badly. And I try to do that each day,” he said.

Mr Bentley’s fondness for Bermuda has brought him back “several times” since 2011. Though the pandemic disrupted a planned visit a few years ago, and he had to cancel a trip last month, his admiration for the island remains strong.

“I've taken my Canadian neighbours to Bermuda because I keep extolling its virtues. It's a remarkable place. We’d love to visit more often,” he said.

• Learn more about Roy Bentley and his books atwww.brbentley.com/