24/04/2014 Meet the Author

Now it is time to Meet The Author with necktie.

`` Nick hi. Charles Cumming, you called this

book a cold war, which sounds like a deliberate homage to the classic spy

thrillers of the Cold War era. Is that right? That is partly,

largely, right. It is prissy impressive `` pretty impressive

company, people like John Le Carre. Is that inhibiting exhilarating? Is

flattering but a bit of albatross. As you say, they are giants of the

genre. John Le Carre particularly is a huge figure not just in spy

fiction, but culturally, if he goes for a walk in Cornwall, it makes the

front of The Sunday Times. If you write in historical novel, you do

not get called the next Hilary Mantell. There is something with spy

novels that we all get compared to, compared with John Le Carre or Len

Deayton. They were writing at a time when there were only two size. This

is set largely in the Middle East. There is a lot about Syria. Is it

more difficult to write a convincing spy thriller in an environment like

that? You have lost that very obvious black and white, ideological

communism versus capitalism. Nowadays it is harder to write

villains because the sort of existential threat these days is of

a maniac, brainwashed suicide bomber blowing us all up. In the old days

it was nuclear annihilation. To try and get into the personality or the

character of a maniac like that is not as interesting as exploring some

of the lives and works in Moscow. You seem to get around that by

acknowledging that the traitor in this book is not really ideological

elite driven, rather like Kim Philby he is a sociopath. He is driven by

his own arrogance and overconfidence. I don't think there

was an ideological underpinning to what Kim Philby did. I am convinced

he did it for reasons of vanity and joining ever better clubs, if you

like. It was a game to him. He was not somebody who had walked with

other commonest score was sympathetic to the working class.

They reckon... There is an intellectual game being played

there. There is vanity at work. He is doing what he's doing purely for

the satisfaction of his own conceit. We worked out long before the end

who is. That is the difference between a detective novel and a

thriller. The thriller is not so much about identifying the villain

as the process by which they are identified. That was a Tinker Tailor

Soldier Spy thing. I was very aware of the cultural weight of that book,

that masterpiece. And I have the same model at the beginning of the

cold war, people who could be the traitor. But I did not want it to be

a similar narrative structure. So yes, you identify my old may be

halfway through the story and it becomes a story not much about

exposing who or she is, but the Cure are making sure they do not elude

justice. `` the hero. This is set in Istanbul. You have obviously gone to

some lengths to make it convincing. Ukraine features in this book. You

have been overtaken by events. Ukraine comes across as a sleepy

client state of Russia, which it is emphatically not. Is that a problem?

I have had a strange crystal ball thing throughout my career. When I

was living in Madrid, the bombings happened. They were initially blamed

on the Basque separatists, Etta. The book I was riding at the time was

about them. I wrote the book about separatists in China rioting. The

week the book was published they started rioting. There is a strange

thing that has followed the around. You have been wrong`footed this

time! Yes! You have two write a book a year under contract. How

challenging is that? It is a challenge that I have not always

met, if ever. My rhythm seems to be won every 18 months or to years.

That may be a mixture of laziness and the failure of my imagination.

The quality of the books will therefore increase if a writer has

to concentrate on writing. Unless somebody has really hit an unusual

sort of place. You see Philip Roth in the Indian summer of his career

with the thrust of his coming out of the sky and into his fingertips. You

are now writing a series. This is the second book about Thomas Kell.

He is seeking redemption, as the publishers say. These heroes are

always seeking redemption. Is he going to be the hero? Will you write

endless books about him? I don't know about endless. He interests me

as a character. There is great decency in him and hope in him, but

there is also greyness and things that he has done that he is ashamed

of. He is trying to come to terms with 20 years as an intelligence

officer, but trying to live his life as a decent man. I don't believe in

this sort of fashionable line about spies, that they are sociopath and

maniacs. I know these people. I have spent time with them and they are no

different to you and I. Or the people in this studio. I'm trying to

get that and at the same time telling exciting story. We look

forward to the next one. Thank you very much indeed, Charles Cumming.

Thank you. Hello there. After a reasonable day

for many it looks as though we will continue to see a fair amount of

cloud but a quiet night. Mostly dry for many. There will be some fog

around. Temperatures perhaps falling away.