I grew up reading the classic novels of Cold War espionage, and I studied Russian history and Soviet foreign policy.
'XIII' is a spy show. I think the comic book is a little too similar to 'The Bourne Identity.' I tried to take it away from that. I believe there was, many years ago, before the Bourne movies, a lawsuit that made it so they couldn't be published in English.
I like lassic British spy thrillers. Seriously. If the cold war was still on, that's something I'd be writing.
Maybe I can become the next James Bond.
I am indeed a fan of John le Carre's novels.
I've always had a great affection for espionage stories. I like weaving them, and I like thrillers.
My preferred genre of reading is crime thrillers - books by Harlan Coben, Jo Nesbo, David Baldacci, James Patterson, Ashwin Sanghi and a few others - and I write crime thrillers.
I would have loved to have another 10 Eric Ambler books.
Le Carre's voice - patrician, cold, brilliant and amused - was perfect for the wilderness-of-mirrors undertow of the Cold War, and George Smiley is the all-time harassed bureaucrat of spy fiction.
Charles Kiss is a legendary James Bond-style British spy. And McGrath is the young idealist who is given the task of following in his footsteps. It's a mission that forces McGrath to question everything he thought he believed in.
Graham Greene's work must be included in any survey of top-rank spy novels, and 'Our Man in Havana' may be his best.
It is my writing dilemma. The world of spying is my genre. My struggle is to demystify, to de-romanticise the spook world, but at the same time harness it as a good story.
I think I was 13 years old when my father put in my hands 'The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.' It was the first real adult book I ever read, and it opened a new world.
When I first encountered the 'Sigma Force' novels - long before I became friends with Jim Rollins - a bookseller told me that these stories were about 'geeks with guns.' While not entirely accurate, that's pretty close to the mark, and that really speaks to me.
I love Le Carre's writing.
I am a huge fan of Alan Furst. Furst is the best in the business--the most talented espionage novelist of our generation.
When I think of a story, somehow it just always seems to come out involving spooks and spies and government skullduggery.
Look realistically at espionage thrillers again. They're not only alive, readers are excited about them.
If Tom Clancy didn't write any Op-Centers, he would be $60 million less rich.
That world of spies and espionage, there's a coldness to it. That's what makes those worlds fascinating - and what makes le Carre's work so interesting.
I think it's more difficult now to write a spy thriller with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Many authors have tried, but few have succeeded in capturing the interest of readers.
Maha Kumbh' blends elements from Hindu mythology with the international espionage thriller. Nothing like it has ever been attempted on Indian television.
