Factory's glue fumes 'made highbrow author Joan Brady write crime stories'

But 15 years after she hit the literary limelight, she has gone from writing heavyweight bestsellers to crime stories.

And she claims the reason is not writer's block but glue fumes from a neighbouring shoe workshop.

Yesterday the American- born writer won a settlement of £115,000 after she claimed to have become so intoxicated from the fumes that she was reduced to writing thrillers.

The former ballet dancer, said she suffered numbness in her hands and legs because of the solvents used by Conker, a shoemaker based next to her home in Totnes, Devon.

Because of the fumes, she said, she was unable to concentrate on writing a highbrow novel, Cool Wind From The Future, and had to resort to a crime story which she found easier.

Yesterday Miss Brady, who won the 1993 Whitbread prize for The Theory Of War, was celebrating after the case was settled out of court. "I deserve a good holiday," she said.

When she originally alerted South Hams District Council to the problem, its environmental health department said that it was unable to test for the chemicals.

When it did eventually conduct a test, the equipment registered a reading so high it was off the scale.

Doctors at Guy's Hospital in London confirmed Miss Brady had nerve damage that was likely to have been caused by chemicals.

The council agreed to pay her £4,000 after an investigation by the Local Government Ombudsman found it guilty of maladministration.

Conker disputes that any damage was caused by its solvents but the company's insurers chose to settle.

Prem Ash, a former co-owner of the factory, said her company used the safest glues on the market.

"We're disappointed that the insurers decided to settle," she added. "We were quite prepared to go to court so that everybody could realise we'd done nothing wrong.

"My two children worked at the factory for six years.

"There's no way we would have subjected ourselves, let alone our children, to toxic fumes."

Miss Brady, who has since moved to Oxford, has already taken revenge in her new novel, Bleedout.

The villain of the piece is named Mr Poole in an oblique reference to one of the workshop owners.

And South Hams District Council has been reincarnated as South Hams State Prison.

The book is dedicated to the council with the words: "If we get right to the heart of things, the South Hams District Council is responsible for the existence of this book.

"Their relentless pursuit of me through the courts took on an almost messianic quality and focused my attention as never before on issues of justice and injustice."