Alastair MacNeill

Alastair MacNeill is a published author of fiction, best known for his novels based on outlines left behind by the late Alistair MacLean. MacNeill was born in Greenock, Scotland, in 1960 and moved to East London, South Africa, when he was six years old. He was educated in East London and Johannesburg, where he developed a love for writing. After a brief stint in hotel management, MacNeill returned to the United Kingdom in 1985 to pursue a career as a writer.

MacNeill's big break came when he submitted a manuscript to HarperCollins Publishers, and it ended up on the desk of Marjorie Chapman, the wife of Ian Chapman who had discovered Alistair MacLean. Marjorie Chapman saw similarities in their writing styles, and MacNeill was offered the chance to write "Death Train" based on an outline left behind by MacLean. This opportunity led to MacNeill developing six more of MacLean's outlines into novels and writing his own novel, "The Devil's Door," based in El Salvador. MacNeill conducted research for the novel by visiting El Salvador shortly after the civil war had ended, which included getting lost in a shanty town. After writing four more novels under his own name, MacNeill tried his hand at screenwriting without success and later returned to live in South Africa in 2006.