TWO Gwent authors have released new works through the same Welsh publisher, Y Lolfa.

John Humphries of Tredunnoc, Usk, and James Pierce, who is originally from Rogerstone, have penned a novel and a biography respectively.

Mr Humphries spy thriller 'Last Rites' is based in Brittany and centres around a woman pleading for help from a phone once owned by the KGB.

The novel's main character, Jack Flynt, becomes obsessed with the phone and carries it with him in a plastic bag from Paris to Wales in a bid to save the woman.

Mr Humphries, a former journalist, said that the idea for the book was inspired by a real telephone believed to have once belonged to the Soviet agency.

"I bought it for $5 from a second-hand shop in Tallinn in Estonia where I was lecturing to journalists how newspapers ran in a free society," he said.

"Estonia had only recently broken free from the Soviet Bloc and the shop owner swore the telephone had been looted from the former KGB headquarters in Tallinn."

Mr Pierce's book is a 'long-awaited' biography on William Salesbury, a leading Welsh scholar and linguist who wrote of Humanism during the Renaissance.

'The Life and Work of William Salesbury' explored the man's pioneering of Welsh printing, including steering the first Welsh dictionary and first translation of the New Testament into Welsh.

Mr Pierce added: "His private life was dogged by marital strife, internal exile, a disputed will, physical assault and the seizure of his property,’ said the author, James Pierce.

"Yet he pioneered Welsh printing and oversaw the passage of key legislation through Parliament. His contribution to the culture and history of both England and Wales is substantial."

Both 'Last Rites' (£8.99) and ''The Life and Work of William Salesbury' (£14.99) are available from Y Lolfa now.