:00:00. > :00:00.And now it's time for Meet the Author with Nick Higham. This weeks
:00:00. > :00:09.guest is Harlan Coben, whose book Missing You is a whodunit thriller
:00:10. > :00:13.set in New York. Harlan Coben is one of America's
:00:14. > :00:19.most successful thriller writers. His books have sold millions and
:00:20. > :00:25.made him a millionaire. Missing You is his 25th. It is about identity
:00:26. > :00:29.theft and online dating. It is likely to confirm your worst fears
:00:30. > :00:33.of what might happen if you meet someone on the Internet. His
:00:34. > :00:37.protagonist is a New York police detective mourning the loss of the
:00:38. > :00:41.love of her life who disappeared suddenly and mysteriously from her
:00:42. > :00:52.life 18 years ago. One day she saw his picture online.
:00:53. > :00:56.This is a book about identity theft but it is identity theft taken to
:00:57. > :01:01.the ultimate extreme, they don't just steal your identity but they
:01:02. > :01:06.steal you. I started with online dating and cat fishing. This is when
:01:07. > :01:09.someone goes online and pretends they are someone else. I could take
:01:10. > :01:14.your pictures of a website and pretend I was you and invent a whole
:01:15. > :01:21.new identity. That is cat fishing and I want to explore this new world
:01:22. > :01:30.of online dating. I combined all of these things together. You also have
:01:31. > :01:32.all the other things we associate with modern technology like Facebook
:01:33. > :01:35.and social media. Your character uses Google and has all of this made
:01:36. > :01:40.the life of a thriller writer more difficult because we are all sleuths
:01:41. > :01:45.now. We all do our own detective work. As it made your life more
:01:46. > :01:51.difficult or easy? It is new challenges. When the telephone was
:01:52. > :01:59.invented that was new for a book as well. In old television you would
:02:00. > :02:02.see phones not being answered but that is unrealistic now. Everyone
:02:03. > :02:06.has a cellphone so if you are going on a date you are going to Google
:02:07. > :02:11.the guy you are going out with and that is the world we live in. My
:02:12. > :02:16.books have to represent that. There are new challenges but also new
:02:17. > :02:21.possibilities. This book, like a lot of yours, revolves around family
:02:22. > :02:25.secrets and family dynamics. There is a dark secret in your protracted
:02:26. > :02:34.list's family. What was your own family life like? Are their dark
:02:35. > :02:37.secrets in yours? There is a quote that says your normal life should be
:02:38. > :02:42.regular so you can be violent and original in your work. I had an
:02:43. > :02:47.average normal suburban childhood and maybe that is how I am getting
:02:48. > :02:53.it all out. These books depend on their success of propulsive plot
:02:54. > :02:58.that is full of twists. How far, when you start writing, do you know
:02:59. > :03:04.whether twists are and where you are writing. Thriller writers cannot
:03:05. > :03:10.make it up as you go along. Both. I know the beginning and the end. I
:03:11. > :03:15.compare it to driving through her `` New Jersey to California. There is a
:03:16. > :03:22.direct route or I might go and stop in Tokyo but I will always end up in
:03:23. > :03:25.LA. One of my favourite quotes on writing is that writing is like
:03:26. > :03:29.driving at night in the fog with just your headlights. You can only
:03:30. > :03:35.see a little bit in front of you but you can make the whole journey that
:03:36. > :03:39.way. There is a twist in almost the last page. I did that twist from the
:03:40. > :03:44.very start. It surprised me, I should have seen it coming but
:03:45. > :03:50.everything in between is negotiable. Yes. Pretty much. There
:03:51. > :03:54.are a few stops I know I will make along the way when I'm travelling
:03:55. > :03:59.along the road but I may skip them. I know some of the aspects but the
:04:00. > :04:04.last few twists I know ahead. I want to fool you once and fully twice but
:04:05. > :04:10.in the very last page of this book there is one more. Readers, do not
:04:11. > :04:16.turn to the last page! A lot of thriller writers start out with the
:04:17. > :04:20.ideas, the twists and turns, not of `` lots of thriller writers seek to
:04:21. > :04:24.do you what you do but few enjoy your success. There is a litre of
:04:25. > :04:30.maybe a dozen that enjoyed the kind of sales you have but `` what is it
:04:31. > :04:37.you do that the vast majority of thriller writers cannot? That is
:04:38. > :04:42.tough. Because of the speed of the plot there are things you may not
:04:43. > :04:47.notice until later. This seems with women who are wives of cops and
:04:48. > :04:52.older and grown`up, it seems like something simple but I think it is
:04:53. > :04:55.heart. It is hard to talk about your own work like this. The key is that
:04:56. > :04:59.you care about the characters and there are moments in the book, any
:05:00. > :05:04.time I write a moment that feels like something I have seen in a
:05:05. > :05:08.thriller I change it. I need the heart and soul and the moments when
:05:09. > :05:12.these women are talking about how hard their lives have been because
:05:13. > :05:24.of too many pregnancies they have had or just a small little moment
:05:25. > :05:27.like that. A lot of people can maybe build the car but you have to have
:05:28. > :05:30.the gasoline to make it run. That is the heart and soul. You need the
:05:31. > :05:35.moments of humour and you need to care about the characters. You will
:05:36. > :05:37.care about a character called cat and another character called Dayna
:05:38. > :05:46.in this book and that makes the difference. When you wrote your
:05:47. > :05:50.breakthrough book it was filmed in France in French and it was a great
:05:51. > :05:54.success. So far none of your films have been made by a Hollywood studio
:05:55. > :05:58.although there are a few in development, why is that? Dialogue
:05:59. > :06:06.is an important part of your books. I have no idea. Part of it is luck.
:06:07. > :06:14.Hollywood is a very strange Treacher and right `` a very strange
:06:15. > :06:22.creature. Right now Mickey Bolitar is being made with Hugh Jackman and
:06:23. > :06:25.Missing You is being made by an Australian company. Next year I
:06:26. > :06:34.could be talking to you and have three but this year I have none. It
:06:35. > :06:41.is a crazy thing. Our day missing a trick? Someone as popular and
:06:42. > :06:46.successful should be meat and drink. When a Tell No One became such a big
:06:47. > :06:49.French movie and did so well and it actually came over here and did well
:06:50. > :06:53.people thought it would be a breakthrough. It is a very
:06:54. > :06:58.unpredictable creature. I am doing a TV series in France and working on
:06:59. > :07:02.doing a TV series here in the UK. I really do not love that world and it
:07:03. > :07:07.is one I would like to stay away from so we will see what happens. I
:07:08. > :07:12.am afraid they will damage them. Tell No One worked as a movie
:07:13. > :07:16.because the director understood it was similar to Missing You and some
:07:17. > :07:20.of my others, it is a love story first and a thriller second.
:07:21. > :07:25.Hollywood always wants to sacrifice the heart for some more action
:07:26. > :07:37.sequences. Thank you very much indeed.
:07:38. > :07:42.Thank you. Hello. Spells of spring sunshine
:07:43. > :07:47.across much of the UK today. There will be for a few more days. The
:07:48. > :07:52.forecast this weekend is to stay dry and bright. Some rain will dribble
:07:53. > :07:56.South on Saturday. By day it will be miles but by night it will be
:07:57. > :07:57.chilly. That is the same for