Author FAQ

Note:
FAQs relating to The Gilded Seal can be found here
FAQs relating to The Black Sun can be found here
FAQs relating to The Double Eagle can be found here

What is your favourite book?
Without question, The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald. It achieves that rare feat of combining a brilliant story with a stylistic brilliance and lyricism that elevates it to an almost poetic reflection on love, money, class, idealism and the empty heart of the American Dream. I think it is one of the greatest books that's ever been written.

Anything else?
1. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Caroll
2. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
3. The Tempest - Shakespeare
4. The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky
5. Tess of the d'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

What is your favourite movie?
Probably Blade Runner. I like science-fiction generally because of the way it transports you to an imaginary and yet believable world and makes you think. Blade Runner combines Philip K Dick's mesmerising reflection on the nature of memory and personality with a totally compelling and authentic vision of the future. I've lost count of the number of times I've seen it!

Anything else?
1. Star Wars
2. Raiders of the Lost Ark
3. Citizen Kane
4. Du Rififi Chez les Hommes
5. The Thomas Crown Affair

What are you working on now?
Currently I'm working on the third book in the Tom Kirk series. It is one year on and Tom is investigating the theft of a priceless Da Vinci painting from a castle in Scotland. His investigation is interrupted, however, by the murder of a friend in Seville. At the crime scene, Tom discovers a message that hints at a breathtaking robbery from the Louvre. In New York, meanwhile, Special Agent Jennifer Browne is looking into a spate of forgeries that have recently appeared in various high-end art auctions. What she finds leads her back to Europe, and on a collision course with Tom.

When is your next novel coming out?
These things change all the time, but at the moment it's slated for Summer 2007. The working title is The Napoleon Seal.

Tell us three things that people probably don't know about you.
1. I was brought up in Paris, France until I was eleven.
2. Before becoming a writer I worked for an investment bank advising companies on takeovers and then left to set up my own business.
3. I support Arsenal Football Club!

Do you have any weird hobbies?
I collect brass and iron plates/plaques off the front of old safes and strong rooms. Is that weird enough for you?

Do you enjoy writing compared to working in finance or being an entrepreneur as before?
I suppose that every job has its good and bad points. Writing can be a very lonely business that lacks the camaraderie and company that a normal office workplace provides. It can also be, contrary to most people's belief in free-flowing artistic inspiration, a seemingly endless process of re-writing, editing and proofing that tests your patience and your resolve to the very limit.

However, it is also a very rewarding experience in terms of both the creative outlet that it provides which so many jobs never give you the opportunity to explore and the pleasure you can take in producing a work that other people enjoy reading. It also provides incredible opportunities for travel and for meeting interesting people. Overall then, I love it!

What is your typical working day?
Perhaps because of my previous business experience, I treat writing very much as a job: I sit down at my desk at eight thirty, take an hour for lunch, work through till about six thirty and keep my weekends free. I find that this disciplined approach helps keep me focused and productive. In the morning I normally review what I have written the previous day, while the afternoon is dedicated to new work. The key for me is not to worry too much about getting the dialogue or the descriptions exactly right first time through or I find that I spend hours on single sentences. I just keep writing and try and get something down and then play around with it later.

Why do you think that art crime provides a good basis for a book?
You only have to leaf through the newspaper most days or go to the movies to see that people share a bizarre and insatiable fascination for stories of daring break-ins and heists, or looted Nazi art surfacing or ridiculous amounts of money being paid for a painting. Perhaps this fascination reflects the paradox of great art in the twenty first century: How is it that objects that represent everything that is best in human endeavour, often bring out everything that is worst in human nature?

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