For me, waiting is the worst part of the writing business. I try to get on with the next project, of course, but somehow progress is slow and uncertain because at the back of my mind is this shrill yet silent scream of fear and hope intermingled: when will the...
A highly entertaining spy thriller and, for me, as someone who tries to write spy novels, an important lesson in how to sustain tension and conflict – and the author does so largely without tradecraft, the apparatus of espionage, and for the most part, without...
The book industry is on the whole of the gentler, kinder sort. Publishers and literary agents tend to be pleasant and agreeable people in my limited experience, even as they do their best when under considerable pressure or in the face of unreasonable demands by...
How Spies Think: Ten Lessons in Intelligence by David Omand I can imagine that the publishers were dazzled by the author’s background and qualifications: a former director of GCHQ, seven years on the Joint Intelligence Committee, permanent secretary at the Home...
I was asked this question by my agent. I’m sorry, I said, but there wasn’t one. At least, there was no single inspiration for my next novel, provisionally entitled ’Emperor’, but instead a coming together of bits and pieces over time. The first element was my own...
The Emperor’s Pool is the provisional title of a contemporary political thriller I’ve just finished and which I’m revising with my agent’s help. Set in Beijing and Washington DC, the novel is around one fifth longer than its predecessors at just over 100,000 words....
