Every writer is influenced, perhaps inspired, by what he or she has read growing up.  Guest writer, M.A. Richards, author of the new espionage novel, Choice of Enemies, traces his interest in the genre back to some classic tales.

The first spy I novel I remember reading was The Counterfeit Traitor by Alexander Klein. I snuck it from my father’s bookcase when I should have been doing my homework. Years later, I watched the film version of the novel with William Holden and Lilli Palmer. First tastes are so important, especially when they are forbidden (yeah, I remember the book but not my homework assignment); they are sweet with deceit and skullduggery. Their memories linger, sometimes so deeply buried you don’t realize how fulsomely they’ve influenced you. 

Nathan Monsarrat is a retired CIA deep cover operative, faced with a dangerous dilemma that will drag him back into Africa in a story of greed and betrayal. This is the first in M.A. Richards’ spy thriller series.

My debut espionage novel, Choice of Enemies, drew on influences of The Counterfeit Traitor in at least two ways: (1) a steady supply of Nigeria’s light sweet crude is the holy grail within the novel, and (2) the most enigmatic character in the novel is Mark Palmer.

Regarding the first point: William Holden played Eric “Red” Erickson, an oil executive who pretended to be a Nazi sympathizer while secretly spying for the OSS on German progress in producing synthetic oil during World War II. In Choice of Enemies, Nathan Monsarrat is a CIA deep cover operative working the oil portfolio in West Africa – to secure Nigeria’s light sweet crude for America’s homes.

Regarding the second point: Is Mark Palmer a good guy? A bad guy? Both? Concurrently? Consecutively? He plays different roles at different times in different locales throughout Choice of Enemies. Since I do not believe in coincidences, the choice of his surname surely harks back to the enigmatic character Lilli Palmer portrays in the movie, Frau Marianne Möllendorf.

Klein’s novel, although influential, was a stand alone. Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels were seminal influences, because they introduced not only a towering good guy defeating epic bad guys time after time, but because the books were intertwined in a series. They opened the possibilities of the development of the hero not only within a specific novel, but over a period of time in multiple situations, facing multiple challenges.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Fleming’s writing is his ability to pin a reader’s interest with a line or two of dialogue. For example, in Goldfinger, Fleming wrote the following interchange:

James Bond: Do you expect me to talk?

Auric Goldfinger: No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!

Foureen words total, far fewer than the allowed 140 Twitter characters.  Far more memorable than any words I’ve ever read on Twitter. What is it, then, that makes Fleming’s dialogue so memorable? Why is this simple interchange between the hero and the villain in a book originally published in 1959 remembered so well today? Continue Reading →