I am endlessly fascinated by what makes a person betray their country.
Growing up I was fascinated by…
The Tudors. I had a charismatic history teacher who taught me a lot about the Tudor and medieval times – so not the period I’m writing about now. I also enjoyed reading the novels of Eleanor Alice Burford, who fictionalised the Tudor period under the pen name Jean Plaidy. I used to love that kind of thing.
My favourite period or conflict…
I’m interested in the broad 20th century, from World War I to the Cold War – because we’re still discovering so much. When I learnt history at school, we thought we had a picture of everything there was to know about the period. But now, as a historian working on declassified files, I realise there is so much we didn’t know, particularly about espionage and secret operations.
Review – The Lost King