0:00:04 > 0:00:10Now on BBC News it's time for Meet The Author with Nick
0:00:10 > 0:00:10Higham.
0:00:10 > 0:00:10Nicholas Searle - not his real name -
0:00:10 > 0:00:13used to be a civil servant, working for much of his time
0:00:13 > 0:00:14on what he calls security matters.
0:00:14 > 0:00:17When he left, he signed up to an online creative-writing
0:00:17 > 0:00:21course, run by one of Britain's leading literary agencies,
0:00:21 > 0:00:22Curtis Brown.
0:00:22 > 0:00:24The result is The Good Liar, a book about an ageing conman
0:00:24 > 0:00:27targeting an octogenarian widow, neither of whom turn out to be quite
0:00:27 > 0:00:33what they seem.
0:00:53 > 0:00:55Nicholas Searle, let's talk about the situation at the beginning
0:00:55 > 0:00:56of this book.
0:00:56 > 0:01:00You have a conman, called Roy, you have his mark, who is a lady
0:01:00 > 0:01:02called Betty, and they are both in their 80s.
0:01:02 > 0:01:03Yes, that's right.
0:01:03 > 0:01:04An unusual situation, in a way.
0:01:04 > 0:01:07Lots of people who have read the book have found it slightly
0:01:07 > 0:01:10unbelievable that there is internet dating when people are in their 80s,
0:01:10 > 0:01:12but, actually, through online research, I've found it's quite
0:01:12 > 0:01:14a normal situation, quite a prevalent thing.
0:01:14 > 0:01:17And this is partly based on an experience that a relative
0:01:17 > 0:01:18of yours had?
0:01:18 > 0:01:18Absolutely, yes.
0:01:18 > 0:01:21One of my distant relatives was in the position where she met
0:01:21 > 0:01:24a chap, who was entirely believable on the surface,
0:01:24 > 0:01:28and they struck up a very strong relationship.
0:01:33 > 0:01:33He moved in with her, and that went sour after a while,
0:01:33 > 0:01:37mainly because he was an inveterate liar, a compulsive liar.
0:01:38 > 0:01:40At every turn, and at every opportunity, he would lie.
0:01:40 > 0:01:42This does happen, though, quite a lot.
0:01:42 > 0:01:45I mean, there was a case in the Times at the beginning
0:01:45 > 0:01:49of December of an older woman who was conned out of ?140,000
0:01:49 > 0:01:50by a conman.
0:01:50 > 0:01:53The thing that struck me about that, reading the story online,
0:01:53 > 0:01:56was how unsympathetic the comments were.
0:01:57 > 0:02:00Yes, well, that is odd, isn't it?
0:02:01 > 0:02:04Why are we - apparently, so many people - unsympathetic
0:02:04 > 0:02:06about women who get caught in a sting like this?
0:02:06 > 0:02:11I think, in the digital world, that it's all too believable,
0:02:11 > 0:02:14it's all too easy to fall for something like this.
0:02:14 > 0:02:17I think it asks questions of all of us, when we meet someone
0:02:17 > 0:02:22new, and it plays to one of our, I suppose, a primal fear,
0:02:22 > 0:02:25almost, is this person who I'm meeting, who is presenting very
0:02:25 > 0:02:29well, is this person actually who they say they are?
0:02:30 > 0:02:35And I wouldn't feel at all critical or unsympathetic towards anyone
0:02:35 > 0:02:38who has fallen for a con of this kind.
0:02:40 > 0:02:42The way this book works is that, progressively through it,
0:02:42 > 0:02:45we learn more and more about Roy.
0:02:45 > 0:02:49You go back, sort of decade by decade, chapter by chapter,
0:02:49 > 0:02:53revealing what he has got up to, and it is clear from the very start,
0:02:53 > 0:02:55we know from the very beginning, that he is a wrong 'un,
0:02:55 > 0:02:57but we don't quite know how.
0:02:57 > 0:03:01When did you come up with that structure for the book?
0:03:02 > 0:03:06Well, I think my starting point was the character of Roy himself,
0:03:06 > 0:03:10who is based on the real individual in question.
0:03:12 > 0:03:15And so the first chapter, I wrote that first of all based very
0:03:15 > 0:03:20strongly on him, and then I paused, then, for thought, and thought,
0:03:20 > 0:03:23well, where do we go from here?
0:03:23 > 0:03:26That is an OK bit of writing, but actually how do we take this
0:03:26 > 0:03:28in a direction that would be of interest to me,
0:03:28 > 0:03:30if I were reading the book?
0:03:30 > 0:03:33And I thought, yes, there is interest in the forward
0:03:33 > 0:03:36trajectory of the relationship, but there is probably even more
0:03:36 > 0:03:40interest in finding out what it was that made this chap,
0:03:40 > 0:03:43Roy, as what he is.
0:03:44 > 0:03:47And, at the same time, I became more and more interested
0:03:47 > 0:03:50in the character that I had more or less invented,
0:03:50 > 0:03:54Betty, who is the elderly lady who he tries to take in,
0:03:54 > 0:03:59who is nothing like the relative I had, but actually I became more
0:03:59 > 0:04:02interested in this imaginary character.
0:04:03 > 0:04:06And it's odd, writers say this a lot, but I wanted to get
0:04:06 > 0:04:10into her head, as things went on.
0:04:14 > 0:04:15And she gained a life of her own in my mind.
0:04:15 > 0:04:18And so the book is about Roy, Roy appears most of the time,
0:04:18 > 0:04:21but I feel, to me, that it's equally about Betty,
0:04:21 > 0:04:23even though she doesn't feature in as many words,
0:04:24 > 0:04:26as many chapters, as Roy does.
0:04:26 > 0:04:30We should say that you wrote this book, I think, you started it just
0:04:30 > 0:04:34before you went on an online creative-writing course,
0:04:34 > 0:04:39run by a leading literary agency, called Curtis Brown.
0:04:40 > 0:04:42Yes.
0:04:42 > 0:04:45And you used to be a civil servant, you had recently retired,
0:04:45 > 0:04:48so this was something you were going to take up.
0:04:50 > 0:04:52But what was the process that took you from thinking,
0:04:52 > 0:04:54I might write a book, to getting onto Curtis Brown
0:04:54 > 0:04:57and deciding on this particular approach?
0:04:57 > 0:05:02Well, I guess I had always wanted to write a book,
0:05:02 > 0:05:06and I had never exactly found either the situation or the words
0:05:06 > 0:05:08to actually put it on a page.
0:05:08 > 0:05:13When I stopped my civil-service career, I decided then that
0:05:13 > 0:05:16I actually wanted to give it a good shot.
0:05:16 > 0:05:18It has been very well received, it has been likened
0:05:18 > 0:05:22to Patricia Highsmith, John Le Carre.
0:05:23 > 0:05:26Le Carre, of course, was famously - before he became a novelist -
0:05:26 > 0:05:29an intelligence officer, and you worked in the civil
0:05:29 > 0:05:31service in security.
0:05:31 > 0:05:33That's right, yes.
0:05:33 > 0:05:35Well, there are a whole range of jobs in security
0:05:35 > 0:05:39in the civil service.
0:05:39 > 0:05:41So we'll all think you're a spy, were you a spy?
0:05:41 > 0:05:44Well, that is a possible conclusion, but there are all kinds of jobs
0:05:44 > 0:05:46in public service which are related to security.
0:05:46 > 0:05:49There's an awful lot of work that needs to be done in Government
0:05:49 > 0:05:54to keep the security policy up-to-date, administering security,
0:05:54 > 0:05:58keeping the structures in place, and so it is not just the spies that
0:05:58 > 0:06:00work in security.
0:06:00 > 0:06:02Was there anything in your professional life that you found
0:06:02 > 0:06:05useful when writing the book?
0:06:05 > 0:06:11I guess every writer draws on all of their life experiences,
0:06:11 > 0:06:15including career experiences, and I think there were several
0:06:15 > 0:06:17things.
0:06:17 > 0:06:21My career enabled me to meet a huge and rich diversity of people,
0:06:21 > 0:06:25that was one thing, so I've met a lot of people in my life.
0:06:27 > 0:06:29I think I'm naturally a good observer of people,
0:06:29 > 0:06:34take stuff in, so that is one side.
0:06:35 > 0:06:38I think - this may sound very strange -
0:06:38 > 0:06:41but the disciplines of the civil service, in terms of drafting
0:06:41 > 0:06:45and writing, being able to write concisely and precisely,
0:06:45 > 0:06:49because, in my world, you absolutely needed to be entirely
0:06:49 > 0:06:54right, and to convey things with absolute exactness,
0:06:54 > 0:06:55that was a bonus.
0:06:55 > 0:07:00I think what I had to learn on leaving was to inject the passion
0:07:00 > 0:07:03and the expression, which you, as a civil servant,
0:07:03 > 0:07:07you are absolutely required to omit.
0:07:08 > 0:07:10Is there another Nicholas Searle novel on the way?
0:07:10 > 0:07:13There absolutely is, but I think it is way too early
0:07:13 > 0:07:14to begin talking about that.
0:07:14 > 0:07:16I mean, I'm working on it, but I'm really concentrating
0:07:16 > 0:07:19on The Good Liar at the moment, that is completely dominating my
0:07:19 > 0:07:22consciousness at the moment, for obvious reasons.
0:07:22 > 0:07:27I am absolutely delighted that it is being published at all.
0:07:27 > 0:07:30I was delighted when one reader - my own wife - read it,
0:07:30 > 0:07:31and really liked it.
0:07:31 > 0:07:34I was delighted when the next reader read it, and so each individual
0:07:34 > 0:07:36reader that reads it afresh, I am absolutely over the moon.
0:07:36 > 0:07:40So it is absolutely on The Good Liar that I'm focused at the moment,
0:07:40 > 0:07:43but there will be another novel, I very much hope.
0:07:44 > 0:07:46Nicholas Searle, thank you very much indeed.
0:07:46 > 0:07:49Thank you very much.