A NEWPORT-born journalist who has covered the news in the Middle East for more than a decade is now an award-winning crime novelist and is set to publish his latest book.

Matt Beynon Rees, who now lives in Jerusalem, will publish Mozart's Last Aria in May.

Compared to authors like Graham Greene and John Le Carre, Mr Rees has already gained high praise for his previous crime writing.

He has won awards for his Omas Yussef series which follows a Palestinian detective and is now published in 23 countries.

His first crime novel, The Bethlehem Murders, was published in 2007 and won the prestigious Crime Writers Association John Creasey New Blood Dagger in 2008.

Mr Rees moved to the Middle East in 1996 and worked as Time magazine's Jerusalem bureau chief from 2000 until 2006 where he wrote award-winning stories about the Palestinian 'Intifada' - or uprising.

This is a long way from his life in Newport - where he was born at St Joseph's Nursing Home in 1967.

Mr Rees lived in Malpas until he was four and the family moved to Cardiff.

But Mr Rees was back in Newport every weekend visiting his grandmother and three great-aunts who lived on Beechwood Road and remembers days spent in Beechwood Park.

Mr Rees regularly returns to Newport to visit his parents who moved back to the city some years ago.

He visited with his wife and three-year-old son, Cai, in September.

"We had a great time. It was really the first time my son, Cai, has been old enough to appreciate places like Tredegar House and Beechwood Park.

“Those, I'd say, are my two favourite places in the city, because they're filled with childhood memories and also because they're green. “Living as I do in the desert, a rainy view of Beechwood Park with its wet purple clay soil is just beautiful," he said.

"I also love that Newport people are so chatty. Middle Easterners are friendly, but they tend to be a little wary at first and they don't give the encouraging facial signals and body language that I get when chatting with a stranger in Newport. It's actually a very, very warm place."

As well as Newport's parks Mr Rees also has fond memories of other places in the city.

"I went to a cousin's wedding at Christchurch a few years ago and was very moved. It was where my parents married and where I was christened. I can feel the stones under my hands even now. The other place I miss is Somerton Park. It's very odd to drive by it today and see houses," he said.

Mr Rees said he remembers seeing football games there including when Newport went to the UEFA Cup quarter-finals.

"I also remember seeing a fellow run 50 yards through the sparse crowd on the terrace behind the goal, just so he could punch some fellow in the jaw. It was something of an introduction to random violence. I was about ten-years-old and for someone who now writes murder mysteries that's a significant event," he said.

Mozart's Last Aria will be published on May 1.