Unwitting revelations about an author

My true story God's Triangle attracted many uplifting and supportive reviews and reader comments. But not everyone was pleased. One woman denounced it as rubbish without having read it. Another, a member of my extended family, hated it because she thought it revealed too much private information about my great aunt Florence "Florrie" Cox. She made it clear that God's Triangle told her more about my character than I had intended.

She was quite entitled to her view and despite her upset, we remain good friends.

Her comments were interesting. I would have said that the book revealed to the reader little more than the impression that I was like a dog with a bone when it came to researching something that caught my interest. But obviously, my family member saw much more than that and didn't like what she saw.

I knew from the moment I began writing my novel The Mortal Maze I would might reveal all sorts of things about my character. I accepted that.

Inevitably, I was asked if I had based the main character, Jackson Dunbar, on myself. I replied with honesty "not in any way". Then a friend and former BBC colleague who had worked for me on a big international story said the bureau chief Mack Galbraith was me. Eh? How could  that be? Mack was Scottish (I'm not), he was a chain smoker (I haven't smoked since I left high school), he drank copious amounts of whisky (I prefer beer), and he was incredibly untidy (well, I'm just a little untidy).

"Yes, I know you're not a smoker and I never suspected you kept bottles of whisky under your coat (or even in your office)," responded my friend, "but these are mere superficialities compared to the similarities between the way you and Mack each acted as a certain kind of non-nonsense hack-cum-office manager in the field, somehow being both protective shield and connecting bridge between highly strung, overwrought correspondents and the corporation stuffed shirts back home."

On reflection, my friend is right. Although I believed I had created a character who was nothing to do with me -- I thought I was basing it on a hard-drinking, chain-smoking, untidy, and entertaining former colleague -- the reality was that I had unwittingly modelled the essentials of his personality on how I ran a team -- or tried to anyway -- when covering a big story.

I can be most grateful that my friend didn't think that the character Dick 'Psycho' Passick was me. Now that would have been very, very upsetting!

A selection of comments/reviews of The Mortal Maze can be seen HERE.

A Q&A about my books and why I wrote them

My two books, God's Triangle and The Mortal Maze, are now available in epub format for those who prefer this to Kindle or paperbacks. The epub versions can be dowloaded here through Smashwords and will soon be offered by other major distributors and publishers. As part of the sign-up, I have done this Q&A:

After many years in broadcast and print journalism, you have switched to other forms of writing. What are they?

I now mainly write books and screenplays. I have two books published -- God's Triangle, the true story about my investigation into what happened to a missionary great aunt in Bengal (now Bangladesh) and The Mortal Maze, a fictional thriller about the corruption of a television foreign correspondent by the intelligence services. A third book, Seeds of Revenge, another thriller, will be published later this year. I also have four screenplays, one of which is in pre-filming development in Australia.

What attracts you to a story?

First of all I need to be intrigued. With my non-fiction book, God's Triangle, my journalistic instincts told me that there was a story that should be investigated and might provide some enlightenment, if told sensitively. As for The Mortal Maze, I wanted to use fiction to explore moral challenges that inevitably arise for journalists when working in a foreign, often dangerous, environment.

For the full interview, go here.

Which tense should be used for a novel?

My thriller, The Mortal Maze, is written in the present tense. It never occurred to me that I should write it any other way because it wanted to give the story some added pace, but some of the feedback has surprised me. Although I have been getting many very good reviews, a friend told me that she wouldn't read the book if it were in the present tense. Another friend told me how much he ended up enjoying the book, but admitted that if it hadn't been written by me, he wouldn't have gone past the first chapter because he disliked the present tense. A couple of reviewers praised the book but said they had to adjust to the tense. Most others either didn't notice the tense or thought it was just right for the story.

I'd be interested to know if anyone else has written a novel in the present tense and what reaction they received. Meantime, here's the early feedback to my thriller.

The Mortal Maze -- some thriller publicity in my former hometown

A welcome article in a newspaper covering the Australian town where I grew up. Read The Mortal Maze reviews here.

Books: a penny bargain

I recently discovered that a second-hand copy of my book God's Triangle was available on an Amazon site for just one penny, plus £2.80 p&p. A penny? How could that be?

The answer, I found, was here in the New York Times Magazine. This article is worth reading, but to sum up it tells us that there are companies that make their profits not on the books they sell, but on the post and packaging.

A member of my family who works for a charity shop in London confirmed the New York Times story. He said that charity shops often get far too many books for them to sell individually, so most are sold in bulk to companies that then choose the best ones to sell for as little as a penny -- plus, of course, the inflated p&p charge.

I never knew that. Did you?

How do journalists get their scoops?

The Mortal Maze, an authentic thriller for journalists and non-journalists alike. Now available as an ebook and paperback...

And here's what some of the early readers think:

The Mortal Maze comments

Charity fund raisers: doncha just hate 'em!

The other day I phone a friend in Australia from London. She hung up before I had a chance to say a word. So I rang her again. This time she answered and when she realised who I was, she explained that she had initially thought she was the recipient of yet another begging call from a professional charity fund raiser.

This happens to me quite often when I ring friends and relatives in Australia or New Zealand, usually in the early evening, their time. It is becoming a serious irritation. More and more Aussies and Kiwis are installing call monitors. As a result, calls from abroad show up as "private number", "number withheld" or "number unobtainable". The person being called assumes -- with some justification, sadly -- that they are in danger or being pestered by a smooth-talking telesales person or criminal displaying all sorts of inventive ways or relieving that person of some or all or their hard-earned cash.

My mother, who died aged 95, was a particular target in her later years for charity beggars. Being a polite woman, she would always hear the callers out and would try to explain that she was an old woman and already gave significant sums of money to charity. As I tried to explain to my mother, this information encouraged, not discouraged, the fund raisers who were almost all working on a commission of one sort or another. It was quite shameful the way they tried to exploit her good nature.

In a related matter, I have recently been receiving calls from a particular UK number that is almost certainly using auto-call phone software.I tracked it down to a charity I have supported for many years. I have now withdrawn my support in protest.