Victor O'Reilly

Who are you?

Who are you?

Ugh! That's a question that really requires a book length answer (it's coming) but for now I'll give you the shorthand version.

I spend a great deal of time in America but I'm Anglo-Irish and the eldest of twelve children. Five fathers were involved. It's kind of complex.

The family originally came from France in the late eighteenth century. My ancestor, Benjamin Lentaigne de Logivieres, escaped from prison in Paris just ahead of the guillotine. His crime was to have a father who was Count Lentaigne de Logivieres at a juncture in history when aristocrats were definitely out of fashion.

Legend has it that he made love to the jailer's daughter and she lowered him to freedom in a laundry basket. Clearly a well built woman.

His siblings lacked his sex appeal. Check in Burke's Irish Families and you will see a row of 'guillotined' after their names.

It says a great deal about the importance of timing when structuring your career.

Benjamin Lentaigne took refuge on a sailing ship bound for anywhere where his head was less likely to be removed just because of his class. He made it to Dublin where the aristocracy were still in control. If there was any killing to be done, they did it. Normally by hanging.

Penniless, Benjamin sat on a church steps and looked forlorn and helpless - but of good lineage. A compassionate doctor took pity on this refugee and invited him home for a meal. Revived, Benjamin compromised the no-work ethic of his peers, took up medicine and joined the British to fight against the new French Republic.

A couple of generations later, his descendant, Sir John Lentaigne, was Surgeon General to the Viceroy and a card carrying member of the establishment who ran Ireland for the British and themselves.

Ireland - less the six counties of Northern Ireland - became independent in 1922. That left the Anglo-Irish a little confused since they were neither English nor Irish. Some headed for Britain. My grandparents headed for Burma, then part of the British Empire. Grandfather Joseph Lentaigne was a barrister working for the British administration there. My mother, Helen Lentaigne - better known as 'Jojo' was actually born in Burma.

Joseph Lentaigne had fought his way through World War 1 in the Ghurkas - he brought a ghurka batman with him to Burma - but was struck down by cholera when mother was still an infant.

My grandmother, Vida Lentaigne, was devastated but followed her husband's wishes and returned to Ireland to bring up her new daughter, Jojo.

A vast house in rural Ireland, a young widow trying to do the right thing, a string of French governesses and a thoroughly rebellious, creatively gifted and stubborn daughter. Meanwhile the new independent Ireland was desperately poor and the remaining Anglo-Irish, mainly excluded from government and positions of influence in the new state, watched their influence and affluence decline.

Much mildew and dry rot. The depression of the Thirties was on.

Being Ireland, it also rained a great deal.

World War II in 1939 provided the perfect excuse for my mother to escape from a worthy but, in her eyes, boring and stultifying environment. Under the guise of heading off to Britain to fight Hitler - she joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force - she journeyed to London and adventure.

I was the result of the kind of adventure that was common enough but not publicly approved of in those days. I was born Victor Lentaigne on May 23 1944 in London. Soon afterwards, my mother married Terence O'Reilly and my name was changed to Victor O'Reilly.

I have often thought of changing back to Victor Lentaigne, but O'Reilly is a good name to have when you live in Ireland - but have an English (actually Anglo-Irish) accent. It makes you fit a little better, I guess. It does not matter so much now but it mattered quite a bit when I was younger.

There will be more. Check back....

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What made you become a writer?

What made you become a writer?

I suspect I answer this question differently each time I am asked it because, in truth, there is no one dominant reason. There is a whole golf bag of motives.

One major factor is that I was brought up in an unorthodox and creatively stimulating environment at home. Mother was a writer and painter who liked to dabble in the theater and the movies. We lived near to Ireland's Ardmore Studios and movie stars and theater people were frequent guests at home. They were glamorous and they were fun. Later on we went on vacation in Monte Carlo and again tended to meet and mix with creative people.

Parallel with this, I was born with a naturally curious disposition, became a voracious reader at a young age and discovered I was not really a joiner.

Some people naturally fit into group activities. I did not. I tended to question the status quo. I found I was - and am - fundamentally driven by ideas. I was much less interested in peer group approval than the stimulus of knowledge. I wasn't an intellectual. I was just curious.

I'm still not an intellectual and I'm still curious.

Over time, I have become much more of a people person but during those early years, apart from a few good friends, books and ideas were my companions. In addition, I discovered that I had a natural aptitude for writing. I also discovered the painful truth that aptitude alone is far from enough. You have to build up experience of life and you have to learn your craft.

More later....

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What is your work routine?

What is your work routine?

Writing, rather like long range rifle shooting, or sex - if it comes to that - is a full focus activity. Theoretically, a marksman could whip up omelets between shots - or a couple indulge in some other extraneous activity such as kite flying while in full action, but, in practice, the mind does not respond well to such multi-tasking under such circumstances. Trust me on this. Millennia have been devoted to researching these matters.

Instead, at least where writing is concerned, I find that my best results are achieved when I ban all distractions - what an attractive fiction - and really get in the zone. The zone, which is real, by the way, is a marvelously super concentrated state where nothing exists except the task at hand. Of course, getting in the zone is easier said than done because the world, just in case you did not know, is dedicated to distracting writers. In fact, when you come right down to it, it's a wonder that books ever get written at all given partners, children, children's friends, soccer chores, invading termites, people coming to read the meters, computer problems, Jehovah's Witnesses, the need to cut the grass, shopping and all those endless chores that merely existing in this world seem to require to be done.

In addition, answering the phone and dealing with one's e-mail are time threats that Shakespeare did not have to deal with - with e-mail being the more dangerous of the two because of the sheer time it can take up and the implied pressure to reply immediately, (or be declared an unsociable schmuck) instead of in the more leisurely time frame of conventional letters.

The Yiddish word shmok means penis, by the way, so watch your pronunciation.

I cannot tell you how to deal with all these stealers of one's creative life - except to recommend that the Spanish Inquisition be re-started to torture and burn telemarketers - but I can tell you that if you don't learn to manage time ruthlessly, you would be wiser to give up writing, and try sky diving or raising ostriches or some such.

They raise ostriches in Ireland. Anything is possible.

The paradox of this writing business is that although the business of life is your raw material - fundamentally you will write best about what you know or have experienced whether you are writing fact or fiction - it is also life that may well stop you writing. And who says God does not have a sense of humor.

You have been warned.

I would like to be able to say that I have evolved a perfect work routine over the two decades I have been writing full time, but the truth is that although I have improved my work routine immeasurably with experience, I am still honing it. You learn, as they say somewhat tactlessly, until you die.

"The Golden Years" is an advertising slogan; all that implied ease is rarely reality.

Some strange people have the notion that writers recline and sip champagne until the creative impulse hits - and then burst into action even if it is four in the morning.

Could be - it's an appealing concept - though not in my experience.
The reality is that I work a small businessman's hours and have scant tolerance for writer's block. I have trained myself to want to write when I see a computer keyboard and, amazingly enough, mostly that works. It is a Pavlovian thing.

I get up early - mostly between five and six - and while having breakfast leaning against the counter, try and write in my mind before actually sitting down in front of the computer. I don't have either the radio or the TV on. The idea is to focus on the world in my mind.

Mostly I work from about seven in the morning until about six at night - less chores - and I add another few hours at the weekends. Add in about two hour a night reading and four hours a day on Saturday and Sunday and the total comes to about eighty hours.

That would be impossible if I did not enjoy what I do but the fact is that I love to observe, research, read, think and write - in roughly the reverse order of that sequence. That makes much of work a pleasure though that does not stop me getting tired. Most of my creative writing is done by about four in the afternoon. After that I'm not as fresh so tend to deal with e-mail, make phone calls and so on. That pattern is not set in stone, of course, because my first priority is to write a minimum of two thousand words.

I break for a light lunch at about 12.00pm every day, which is early by Irish standards. Sometimes I chat with one of my kids during it but frequently friends decide I'm available during that period so I find myself on the phone more often than not.

I work inside an open rectangle of tables with all my equipment laid out around me, bookshelves containing ring-binders, files and books close at hand and a library of about 5,000 volumes in all to draw upon in the house. I once read that a gentleman's library should consist of about 4,000 books but I guess I am an enthusiast.

If ever I am stuck, I browse the books or go for a walk. Never fails.

I work with a Sony Vaio VCG-RA825GY desktop computer equipped with a 3.6Mhz CPU, 2GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive plus a separate backup hard drive. This sounds like a lot of machine for pure writing but the advantage of such a spec is that it can handle indexing and a plethora of security software in its stride without becoming unusable. The requirement for firewall, anti-virus and anti-spyware is a pain but there are so many security threats on the web that I take every reasonable precaution I can and update constantly.

The Sony is an interesting machine for all sorts of reasons including the fact that it is equipped with its own liquid cooling system which makes it virtually silent - a truly marvelous feature.

The ability to index fast is important because one of the greatest banes of my life used to be filing and finding. The volume is huge. Now I store almost everything electronically and search using Google Desktop or X1. These are not perfect solutions because there is a tendency to get too many hits but I'm getting there.

Many are curious about the extent to which I use the Internet for research. The truth is that I use it constantly to check basic facts, and find it invaluable in that role, but find it is no substitute for real life experiences. Nothing beats going places and meeting people. Nothing beats being shot at (providing the hostiles miss), travel to other countries, attempting to understand other cultures, and generally having adventures.

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Where do you get your ideas?

Where do you get your ideas?

I have been a reader since the age of seven and have led a fairly active and adventurous life, so I don't really have any problem in coming up with basic storylines. Quite simply, experience produces ideas and then one idea tends to lead to another. And conveniently, if the raw material is there in the first place, the subconscious seems to oblige by doing a great deal of the preliminary work.

GAMES OF THE HANGMAN was inspired by an actual hanging. I found the body under circumstances pretty much as described in the book. There was a castle in the area (originally owned by William Randolf Hearst) so I just worked from there. And it did not hurt that there was also a serial killer plying his trade in the vicinity. He was murdering homosexuals. I even got interviewed by the police just in case I was maybe carrying my research a little too far.

Not guilty.

A great deal of my work is inspired by actual events - even the more elaborate scenes. In fact, it is hard for a fiction writer to outdo reality. People tend to believe what they know and to dismiss much else as exaggeration or hyperbole. In fact, the more I travel and research, the more impressed I am by just how weird, wonderful and wacky the world really is. It is also extraordinarily inventive - and dangerous. There really are bad people out there. Terrorists really are hard at work and becoming increasingly lethal. There really is a truly horrendous threat from weapons of mass destruction like nuclear bombs and chemical and biological weapons. And threat is understating the case. It suggests remoteness. Some of these things are already being used.

Pretty much anything you can imagine - no matter how extreme, grotesque or outlandish - is probably happening.

Editors - who tend to come from a relatively sheltered and select minority of the community like to use phrases like "over the top." Because mostly they don't know. But those who "walk the walk," they know how it really is.

You've got to talk to people who know. It's better still if they know and care. There's a difference.

I put a great deal of effort into trying to stay informed about the areas that I write about. My base preparation is always reading myself in, but then I make a point of meeting the people who know - and then staying in touch with them thereafter. In turn, as I have become better recognized as an author, people come to me. They want someone to explain what they do and why they do it and a good way for someone constrained by secrecy restrictions is to get their message across through the medium of fiction. It's a form of recognition which they well deserve. It's not enough but it's something.

Sometimes fact and fiction overlap operationally. A couple of years ago I was researching a scenario based upon a secret special forces raid into a North African country when one of my contacts politely asked me could I use another story line. My fictional mission was actually about to happen.

I changed the story as requested because the maintenance of trust is fundamental. There is a balance between understanding how it is and conveying that essence - and betraying operational security. In such a situation, it is no contest.

A byproduct of my approach is that I travel a great deal and where possible I like to carry things further and not only talk to the people but also go to the locations I write about and get as deep into the reality as I can. Within reason.

To illustrate the point, over the last ten months or so, as part of preparations for a series of researched action thrillers involving the US Army, I have visited Fort Bragg, Fort Stewart, Fort Benning, Fort Campbell and Fort Irwin. I have flown in Blackhawk and Apache helicopters by day and night, fired all the weapons in the Abrams tank and Bradley fighting vehicles, witnesed an artillery raid, taken part in a helicopter assault by the 101st Airborne (Air Assault) Divison., spent more time standing in the mud and rain than I care to think about, attended a series of after action reviews, watched and participated in live fire exercises at the National Training Center in the Mojave Desert and talked to over a hundred and fifty soldiers from the commanding general of the XVIII Airborne Corps to an assistant M60 gunner. I have also spent the equivalent of several days in open humvees - as my behind will testify - and slept in the field for four days while with the 1st Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division. Finally, I returned to Ireland with several hundred photographs, over a hundred pounds of manuals and other research material and several weeks listening time on tape.

I guess all of this adds up to the fact that I don't wait for ideas to come to me. I go looking.

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How do you do your research?

How do you do your research?

The hard way.

I jest - though not completely.

The first thing I would like to say about research is that in the context of writing fiction, it is less important than you would think. The James Bond books were written with a minimum of research though on the back of Ian Flemings's intelligence background. Arguably most fiction writers do no research at all but just use their imagination and write from their own experiences.

It's an approach which has a great deal to recommend it.

I guess that I write research based books because I am naturally curious and writing a book is as good an excuse as any to sally forth and find things out. And here I should add that I only research and write about subjects that interest me.

I start from a background of normally knowing something - not necessarily very much - about the subject I am investigating. That comes primarily from reading both books and magazines and to a lesser extent from radio and TV. Magazines such as The Economist or The New Scientist cover a quit amazing array of subjects so you end up with a smattering of knowledge about such arcane subjects as worm farming and laser technology as applied to cloning strawberries. But it's all good background and knowledge is like a jigsaw puzzle. You can determine the shape of what's missing if you are familiar with the surrounding pieces. And everything is connected.

The next stage is to focus and to read myself in to the subject that really interests me. Here I start with my own files and library and then go hunting in the bookstores. I am a great believer in books. I know how much work goes into them. A specialist book is often a life's work.

So far I have not made much use of the web except as a communication medium though that will change. But books or web, the principle of reading yourself into a subject still remains the same. And its important because the more you know to start with the more people are likely to tell you. It is a matter of showing you are serious, paying your dues and - to be practical - it is rather fundamental to know what questions to ask.

One of the problems with writing fiction is that because you can more or less write anything you want (your editor and readers will have something to say about that later) it can be hard to work out exactly what you need to know. The solution to that is to get a story outline together as early as possible in the exercise and use that as the benchmark. Is it relevant? becomes the mantra. And as you research you start to firm up that outline until all the main elements are there - even if not the detail.

It is normally possible to write an initial brief outline based upon desk research alone but the essence of my kind of research is heading out into the field and spending time in a location getting to know both the subject and the people.

I don't like commando raids when doing research. I like to wander around and soak up the atmosphere. When I was fact finding in Switzerland for Games Of The Hangman I originally intended to go to Zurich for only two weeks. I ended up going from Zurich to Bern to see an old friend, fell in love with the old city and stayed two months. And it was the extra time that made the difference.

When I was in Bern, I stayed in the center of the city and walked almost everywhere. On foot you get a real sense of a place. It's a technique that depends upon the location. I wouldn't fancy it in the middle of the Mojave Desert but in a picturesque old city it's ideal.

The story of Games Of The Hangman came together as I wandered about, scribbling notes as I sat in cafes and sometimes using a small tape recorder. In truth I am a terrible note-taker but I have the kind of memory that if jogged tends to have good recall. Accordingly, I use a pocket notebook, a tape-recorder and a baby Olympus camera as mutually reinforcing tools. I've tried a video camera but found that it was too bulky and tended to separate me from the subject.

When I talk to someone I tend to get so interested that I forget all about any supporting technology. The discussion becomes the thing.

People are really the most important aspect of field research. Recently I had a fascinating time at the US Army's National Training Center in the Mojave Desert but the memories I have brought back with me are less of tanks firing and beautiful sunsets. Instead I recall the faces of the people I met, the fatigue and the laughter, the pride in achievement and the strain that a month long rotation - the nearest thing to actual combat that exists in peace - can inflict.

Field research to me is above all about talking to - and observing - people in the context of their surroundings.

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What are you working on now?

What are you working on now?

It's a secret!

I jest, but the truth is that I am getting a little superstitious about announcing book projects before they are sold. Writing is not the problem. Indeed, writing well is not the issue. However, writing a book which publishers decide to buy and promote - note the corollary - is another matter entirely. This is not about heroic writers and villainous publishers but more about the fact that this business is more of a crap game than most of us care to admit. Putting it another way, as screenwriter William Goldman wrote so memorably about Hollywood, "Nobody know anything."

That is an exaggeration to prove a point and in my experience his point is substantially valid. But it should also be noted that no media tycoon, whether in the movies, publishing or the music business, cares to admit this sobering truth. After all, they get the big bucks largely because of their assumed expertise. They are 'The Wizards Of Oz' and God forbid you draw back the curtain.

Publishers do not know the secret of producing nothing but best sellers, but most know how to market - so overall the books that are marketed best sell best.

Best sellers are made more often than not. They are the result of an investment decision. Talented writing is not a requirement. As always, there are exceptions.

The notion that a well marketed book can outsell a well written book is a sobering concept for a writer, but, speaking as a reader and a prolific buyer of books, I will confess that overall the publishing industry does a pretty good job. It is not efficient, fast, fair or overly laden with integrity - and it can be mean and bitchy - but this destructive chaos, administered by a great many overworked and underpaid editors, serves us remarkably well nonetheless, albeit at great cost to many writers. Frankly, the process is brutal but such is capitalism. I doubt we would prefer state regulation.

I mention all those to avoid being marmalized by readers who expect my work to appear on schedule in the manner of a train on Swiss Railways. There is a bottleneck for an author to go through called the publishing industry and the agendas of author and publisher may, not infrequently, fail to coincide.

'Marmalizing,' by the way, is a marvelous word invented by the brilliant and wacky British comedian, Ked Dodd, to describe an unserious threat of total destruction.

But let me finally get to the point.

I am just finishing polishing 'The Cottage' and then will be returning to the thriller business.

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What do you do apart from writing?

What do you do apart from writing?

Being a single father has been my main preoccupation these last six years though I would be hard pressed to list all that such an activity entails. But mostly it's a real pleasure leavened with periods of panic. When Evie broke her hand after exiting the trampoline at an awkward angle, I nearly died inside. Then again her courage, despite being in considerable pain, was truly awesome.

Well, enough of sentimentality! All you parents know this stuff and the candidates in waiting will learn soon enough. Still, it is a little odd that we embark on it all with so little training.

Apart from the trampoline in the garden, there are several exercise machines, including a treadmill, inside the house which I confess I don't use as much as I should, though hope springs eternal. But the kids use them so I guess they help to set a healthy tone.

Such aspirations apart, I like to read, think, walk, travel, visit foreign lands, sit in cafes watching the world go by - I have done quite a bit of writing in cafes - and chat to my kids or with friends in the kitchen or over dinner. This is essentially an idea driven house so home can sometimes feel like a debating society. Both Evie (18) and Bruff (16) are formidably talented in that area and equally well informed so my generational advantage is fading - which makes me fiercely proud - albeit under fire on occasions.

Most of my TV viewing, such as it is, consists of news, documentaries and movies. As to US TV in general, we find it so bad compared to European TV that one cannot but wonder about its effect on the population as a whole. It seems to be self evident that if a population is inadequately informed, then the basis for the kind of rational decision making that is required to underpin a healthy democracy is missing. If this seems like unwanted criticism by a foreigner, I can only comment that many of our American friends - particularly those who have traveled and seen alternatives - feel exactly the same way. In fact some ban TV in their homes. I am not so extreme. Anyway, I am far from sure my kids would let me get away with it, though I note that they are commendably selective in their viewing.

We are all avid movie buffs (a major subject I hope to write about some other time).

Trying to get my computer system to work the way I want it has taken an unconscionable amount of time and frustration over the last two decades but has become less of a nightmare since I started using Windows XP. Still, the ever changing face of technology means there are always fresh concepts to be understood and new programs to be learned - all of which takes me longer than it should because I have more ambition than aptitude in this area though it continues to fascinate me.

Mind you, I have scant interest in the technical aspects of how computers work, though understand the general principals, but am fully engaged with the potential of what computers can be made to do. That list grows longer by the day.

All of that apart, I still hold to the view that Bill Gates has a great deal to answer for in respect of decades of producing truly awful operating systems and that moment of Zen in that South Park movie, when Bill Gates is shot, remains a tender memory. We were in Carlsbad, California at the time, as I recall. During that trip we visited Quantico courtesy of our good friend, Colonel GI Wilson. As I write this he is now, once again, in Iraq. We miss him.

Photography remains a passion - as I hope this web site will eventually demonstrate - but I have not yet made a complete transition to digital photography. I have dipped my toe in the water with a Canon PoerShot S500 Digital Elph - an excellent camera now mostly grabbed by the kids - but my reflexes still scream for an SLR. I like to compose in the lens the way I was taught and the camera I learned on was a Nikon F so I was trained to a high standard. Hard to change. Currently I have an Olympus OM-2 with a motor wind which I suspect is about two decades old. It still takes truly beautiful pictures.

We are now so saturated by moving imagery that it is tempting to regard still photography as a dying art (apart from paparazzi type shots for the tabloids). I do not hold to that view. I still think there is something special about an image frozen in time - though defining the difference between a brilliant photograph and a snapshot is hard to put into words. But it can be seen immediately. Good still photos have insight and power.

Currently, I have a library of thousands of negatives which I hope to digitize though how that will be done, given how slow it is to digitize even one negative at high quality, is a good question. But memories are precious things so I guess I'll find a way.

I love music though find it impossible to work with music in the background. In contrast, my kids are close to having earphones implanted.

I could write about other activities, and, of course the ideal is lead a balanced life, but the underlying hard truth is that creative people are rarely balanced, or even particularly sensible in their life styles, because creative work tends to be near an all consuming passion which is hard for all concerned including the artist. Whether this is right or wrong is academic. It is natural to the creative condition. In fact, it is just amazing that more of us don't hack an ear off (Van Gogh) or numb our fevered minds with absinthe and prostitutes (Toulouse Lautrec) or blow our brains out (Ernest Hemingway).

Then there is also the fundamental reality that the process of writing books to an acceptable standard takes far more in itself than is generally understood. Some mythic writers write fast and well first time around - but most us have to work phenomenally hard to make the end result look easy.

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Favorite Books - Past and Present

Favorite Books - Past and Present

This is a section I will put some serious time into later but for the moment let me just give you the background and list only a limited number of books and authors. When time permits, I'll try and expand that list significantly. It is always pleasant to be recommended to a good book (and to recall endless hours of reading pleasure).

Why not start at the beginning! After reading primers, I got rolling with children's authors like Enid Blyton but fairly soon gravitated to a genre that was vastly more appealing - stories of high adventure:

The Biggles series of books about flying by Captain W.E. John's and a whole series of Word War II books by Percy F. Westerman.

The extraordinary books of J.R.R. Tolkien The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings. The Lord Of The Rings is high adventure on an epic scale and is a book I have re-read several times. It is a 'must read.'

I tried Charles Dickens too young and never really got to like him but by the time I was in my teens had formed a real appreciation for adventure novels.

I also developed a real passion for good stories. Here Nevil Shute was a major discovery. He is probably best known for A Town Like Alice but he wrote many more equally as good. Above all else, Nevil Shute is a story teller.

I moved through my teens devouring Edgar Wallace - The Four Just Men, Leslie Charteris - The Saint and endless Word War II books by authors such as Paul Brickhill The Great Escape and Russell Braddon The Naked Island and encountered sex for the first time in Grace Metalious's Peyton Place. I was about fourteen when Peyton Place was found in my school locker by a prowling housemaster and the aftermath of that finding is seared into my mind. Such a book was not approved of!

I beat a temporary retreat to Stanley Weyman's and Rafael Sabatinin's great series of sword fighting adventure stories and then moved via a brief stint in Westerns (you've got to read Zane Grey and some of the other great names) into a prolonged love affair with science fiction. I guess I started with John Wyndham's The Day Of The Triffids but soon moved on to a seemingly endless list of brilliant writers. Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, John Brunner. These were outstanding people.

Because I was Irish and went to both Irish and English public schools, I came a little late to authors like Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammet but soon made up for lost time.

Funnily enough Ian Fleming's James Bond books did not make a major impression at first but that changed with the movies. And it did not hurt that Kevin McClory - who sued Ian Fleming over Thunderball and won - was a neighbor at the time. Kevin went on to produce the movie Thunderball.

In 1960, at the too young age of 16, I went to university to study Economics as my primary subject for four years. That led me into Samuelson's Economics and onto J.K. Galbraith's The Great Society. Thereafter I bought pretty much anything that Galbraith wrote not because I agreed with his politics but because he made me think and I love the way he writes.

University was a good opportunity to do some serious reading of more highbrow literature - and I had to do some because one of my subsidiary subjects was English - but by that stage my preference was clearly established in favor of simply written popular books as opposed to 'literature.' Jane Austen happens to have an elegant toe in both camps and Pride and Prejudice remains one of my favorite novels but I had scant interest in the works of many other highly rated literary authors. Instead I was turned on by non fiction books such as Martin Mayer's excellent Madison Avenue USA and Bernard Fall's Street Without Joy.

By the time I left university in 1964, although I continued to read mass market fiction, I had already embarked on a area of reading and study that has stayed with me to this day. I used to think of it as 'Small wars since 1945' but my orientation was heavily slanted towards guerrilla warfare and how to respond - and eventually that theme evolved to include a deep interest in special operations and low intensity warfare and, increasingly, terrorism.

If it concerned Malay, Indonesia, the Philippines, Indo China, Korea, Vietnam, the Arab Israeli wars, Algeria, the Congo, and eventually Afghanistan, the Falklands, Cyprus, Grenada and Somalia - to name just some of the conflicts - I bought it, read it and studied it. In fact now I think about it, I have been studying that arcane area for over thirty-five years. I guess eventually one crosses the line from being interested into being expert - but that is for others to say.

Arguably the most seminal books as far as I was concerned, apart from the Bernard Fall books, were Frenchman Jean Larteguy's two brilliant novels about an elite group of French paratroopers fighting the FLN rebels in Algeria. The Centurions and The Praetorians had such a profound effect on me in fact that I headed off to Corsica to spend six weeks with the French Foreign Legion trying to sort out fact from fiction. I soon found out that the two books, though officially novels, were primarily factual. I also got arrested by the legion but that is another tale.

There is a postscript to this story. The decades passed and very few people I met had ever heard of Jean Larteguy until last autumn, 1996, I went to spend some time with the 101st Airborne Division in Fort Campbell, Kentucky. There, amidst the mud and rain of Operation Megagold, I met the G3 of the division Lieutenant Colonel Dan Bolger and one of his first acts was to present me with a recent book he had written about the US Army's Joint National Training Center in Louisiana. And no sooner had I started to read but there was a prominent mention of Jean Larteguy.

Do enough homework and the pieces really do start to fit together.

More about Dan Bolger's output later. He's an excellent writer with a wicked sense of humor and if you are interested in this area go hunt him down.

I am regularly asked why I am interested in such subjects as guerrilla warfare and terrorism. In brief, I think it initially had to do with family connections and a fairly military environment when I was young, and eventually the inherent interest of the issues took over. Also, when I circulate in this world, I seem to meet particularly interesting people. And if you are an author, it's great raw material.

The military connections of the family are many but the first special operations link occurs with my great uncle, General Joe Lentaigne who commanded the Chindits in Burma in World War II after General Orde Wingate was killed. The Chindits specialized in long range penetration of the Japanese lines and were one of the pioneers of combat re-supply from the air - mainly by the US Army Air Force. The US equivalent of the Chindits were Merrill's Marauders.

General Wingate is probably even better known as being the initial inspiration and trainer of the Israeli Army. While still serving in the British Army, he taught the Jewish settlers how to respond to Arab raids and later on went on to seize Ethiopia back from the Italians. He was a soldier who believed in unconventional warfare and taking the initiative.

As it happens, General Wingate's son was in my year at school and we were all suitably impressed when one day the Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia turned up in Britain for a state visit and invited young Wingate out for the day.

One of the Chindits' most talented officers was Colonel John Masters. After the war, he emigrated to the US to make his fortune marketing a new type of bra. When that did not work out, he turned to writing and eventually published a series of excellent novels - mainly about India - and two outstanding autobiographies.

John Master's is one of my favorite authors. A good sense of humor and high adventure.

One of my favorite books from that era of reading is an extraordinary memoir by Vladimir Peniakoff called Popski's Private Army about a jeep based unit raiding behind enemy lines in North Africa during World War II. Popski proved that a small group of well equipped highly motivated soldiers could be disproportionately effective and he is one of the pioneers of manoever warfare. The modern equivalent of the jeeps he used is the FAV or FAST ATTACK VEHICLE and I have featured such machines in The Devil's Footprint.

Another relation, John Lentaigne, was killed at the Battle of Alamain in North Africa and his name is inscribed in gold on the panelling of the Junior House of my old school, Ampleforth College. Ampleforth was also attended by the founder of the SAS David Sterling - and it was one of Sterling's people who eventually introduced me to the US Congressional Task force on Terrorism which was the inspiration for the task force featured in The Devil's Footprint.

I am not sure there are as many as Six Degrees Of Separation.

Another great military book I read in 1990 is Rick Atkinson's Long Gray Line. This is an account of West Point's Class of 1966 and features amongst others a certain George A. Crocker. Years later it was Major General Crocker that I met and interviewed when researching the 82nd Airborne for The Devil's Footprint and I owe him quite a debt of gratitude for pointing me towards the people ahead of the technology. The US Army is commonly thought of as a high tech force and indeed it is but the real strength of the force lies in the quality of the average soldier. Or as they say in the 82nd, LGOPS - Little Groups Of Paratroopers.

I have focused heavily on military reading for the last few paragraphs but that is mainly because of the connections with my work. In fact on a routine basis, I try and read a mix of books - both fiction and non fiction - and I would be remiss if I did not mention authors such as Peter Drucker, Paul Kennedy The Rise And Fall Of The Great Powers or Hedrick Smith The Power Game.

But let me close with fiction and by listing some of my favorite current authors who write in or close to my genre.

TOM CLANCY - When I was unpublished, a new Tom Clancy work was one of my great treats. I did not plan to write like him. I just read him for sheer pleasure.

PAUL ERDMAN - Paul Erdman writes both great fiction and superb non fiction and all his books feature an enormous zest for life and an electric sense of humor. Also, we share certain Swiss experiences. If it's by Paul Erdman I buy it and he's an easy way to absorb some economics

TED ALLBEURY - Ted and I exchange Christmas Cards these days because he was kind enough to say good things about my first book. As it happens, I have read and enjoyed him for years so his comments were especially significant. Nice man. Great books mainly about espionage. He knows what he is writing about. He has a background in intelligence.

DALE BROWN - I love good military aviation and Dale Brown delivers the air force segment of that with great consistency and quality. Highly recommended.

DAVID IGNATIUS - David Ignatius writes beautifully. I bought and enjoyed Agents Of Innocence and Siro and I hear his latest is a 'must have.'

GERALD SEYMOUR - Gerald Seymour has a distinctively elegant tight style and has written better fiction about terrorism in Northern Ireland than anyone else I know. He also covers the special operations area. A major league talent who deserves to be even better known than he is already.

NELSON DEMILLE - Nelson DeMille is close to being my favorite fiction author precisely because he does not write the same thing time after time but is prepared to take risks and push the envelope of the genre. As an author I admire DeMille for his guts and as a reader I love his imagination and his sense of humor. A great talent.

JIM WEBB - Jim's Fields Of Fire is one of the all time great Vietnam novels and I just wish he was not so damn talented in so many areas and would have the time to write more books. I have now got to know and admire him personally and borrowed his work apartment overlooking the Iwo Jima memorial for my protagonist, Hugo Fitzduane, to occupy during The Devil's Footprint. I also tried to express some of Jim's values in that book. He is as stubborn as only a former marine can be but he is seriously good people - and a great American. Semper Fi, Jim!

Will be expanding this section over the fullness of time. There are so many great writers out there it is frightening - but it is hard to be bored.

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