David Rollins | I, prescient.

Hi there,

What can I tell you about my latest book, A Knife Edge, that you won’t get from reading it?

When I was writing the book in 2004-05, the conflict in Afghanistan was well and truly on the back burner. The US military was heavily engaged in Iraq and the ‘gan had receded from the public consciousness. There were a few hot battles, like the one at Tora Bora, after which everyone seemed to pack up and go home. History told me the Taliban was too easily pacified and that, like a virus, they would come back stronger.

A Knife Edge was written with this view in mind. If the West had to go back into that country again, I wondered, would the gloves come off? Would we launch cross-border attacks into Pakistan territory? And if the political situation in Islamabad went pear-shaped, what sort of government could take power there?

Well, I’m sounding positively clairvoyant, aren’t I? It’s 2009 and we’ve been drawn back into the ‘gan in a big way. We’re going after targets across the border, and the political situation in Pakistan is shaky. (In fact, because many of my novels have seemed to foretell events, my publisher once suggested that I might be freakishly making them happen simply by writing them down. In the next breath she then asked to be cast in one of my novels as a women swept off her feet by a tall, dark and exceeding rich Italian (?) stranger.)

Okay – let’s stop right here. If you haven’t read any of my books, especially the ones featuring my protagonist Special Agent Vin Cooper, you might be thinking that my novels are a serious, furrowed brow affair. While there is always some kind of geo political edge to them, they are written to be pure entertainment. Indeed, I’ve been told often enough that people actually laugh out loud reading them. And that’s because of my buddy, Vin.

Vin Cooper is a blast to be around because he has faults. He ain’t perfect, but then who is? He’s a bit of a cad, he’s not at all PC, and he tends to shoot himself in the foot. Sometimes his behaviour is so downright embarrassing that he even makes me blush. He’s brash, cynical and his moral compass (when it comes to women) can tend to waver from time to time. Importantly, though, he’s always a force for good. His heart is in the right place and he’s unstoppable when he gets his eye in.

Over the last 12 months, however, I took a break from the guy to write something else. This is because my wife was concerned that I was turning into him. But now I’m back to writing the fourth Vin Cooper thriller in the series (HARD RAIN, out in 2010, is the third), purely because I missed his company. And, gazing into my crystal ball, I think I’ll probably be channelling his activities for several more years yet.

Cheers

David Rollins