An Interview With Author, Humphrey Hawksley

AN INTERVIEW WITH HUMPHREY HAWKSLEY

First, congratulations on your newest release, MAN ON EDGE, A Rake Ozenna Thriller. You’ve already received some phenomenal reviews for this book, hailing it as “A multilayered tale with plenty of fast-paced action [that] will hook thriller fans…” (Booklist) and “Reminiscent of the very best Cold War fiction, filled with double-dealing, and ingenious political intrigue.” (Nelson de Mille). Give us a little insight into what it’s been like for you to now have the second book in the Rake Ozenna series out after the first, Man on Ice, was so well-received.

It’s satisfying that the idea in creating an unusual character from a little-known setting is gaining traction. On this second book, Man on Edge, reviewers are beginning to talk about the role of Rake Ozenna as much as the story itself. It’s a crowded market out there, and I’m forever grateful to my publisher for seeing potential and the team of people from editors to publicists to booksellers to readers for helping grow the idea and keep it alive.

You are a former foreign correspondent for the BBC and have reported on events and conflicts from all over the world. What inspired you to set the Rake Ozenna series in the Arctic North as opposed to anywhere else? Did you have any personal experiences of your own in the Arctic North that became determining factors for writing these high-octane novels in that setting?

The Ukraine crisis in 2015, when Russia ended up annexing Crimea, ended up pitting the U.S. against Russia in a Cold War kind of way. I wanted to see exactly where these two global superpowers came face to face, so I went there for the BBC. The theater of conflict may be Europe, but the United States and Russia actually share a border across the Bering Strait. At their closest point they are less than three miles apart. Little Diomede, an Alaskan civilian village of fewer than 100 people lies across a narrow stretch of water from Big Diomede which is a Russian military base. This border is known as the Ice Curtain, the little known direct U.S.-Russia frontier against the more famous European Iron Curtain. Once there, I learned how this region was becoming yet another flashpoint for global conflict. Melting ice was opening northern sea routes through the Arctic prompting a scramble for control by Russia, China, the U.S and others. The Arctic was becoming the new, untested arena of great power strategy with similar repercussions as in the early 20th Century when the discovery of oil in the Middle East transformed that region into what it is today. I set Man on Ice on that border and for Man on Edge moved Rake Ozenna to Norway’s border with Russia which is also its border with NATO. I had an idea to write a chase across the border with huskies and sleds. I went to Norway’s Arctic and dog-sledded along the border to check how and if it would work.

The main character of both MAN ON ICE and MAN ON EDGE in the Rake Ozenna series is, in fact, Major Rake Ozenna of the Alaska National Guard. We don’t often see American characters from such remote places like Alaska with lead roles in espionage and spy Thrillers. What inspired you to write Rake Ozenna as a character so far removed—geographically and perhaps even socially —from the contiguous United States?

As soon as I arrived on Little Diomede and met that rugged, tough, generous community, I sensed I began to imagine a character who could stand out from the crowd. Anyone raised on the island had to survive extremes of weather and the challenges of a small, remote community. They would also have grown up under the shadow of a hostile Russia which would give them an instinct for global politics. Rake Ozenna joins the military and succeeds in breaking through to officer. Very little phases him, and he applies the same situational awareness skills in dealing with the Army as he would with a sudden storm during a walrus hunt in the Bering Strait. Despite his success, he is always drawn back to his community.

In your opinion, what are the most important elements every espionage and spy Thriller needs in order to hit the mark like you’ve so successfully done with MAN ON ICE and MAN ON EDGE, as well as your other works in this genre?

That’s a tough one, a great one, too. I think they need to take the reader somewhere they haven’t been before and tie it in with a big issue that requires espionage. The narrative must be composed of unanswered questions that the reader knows will come together at the end, running the mystery and the contest in parallel until the very end. If you can, keep the solving of the mystery until the very last page. I tie myself in knots of indecision over when to hold back when to reveal. As a journalist, I am trained to tell what I know as soon as I know it. As a thriller writer, it is about concealing and drip-feeding information.

If you could have done anything differently while writing MAN ON EDGE, what would that be and why? If you wouldn’t change a thing, tell us about how you got to the place in your career as a Thriller author where that hypothetical time machine wouldn’t make a difference.

My training as a journalist has imbedded a file and move on discipline. There is a temptation to look back and think I should have Rake do this and Carrie do that. Instead, I tend to think, “That could be interesting. Let’s test it in the next book.” Having said that, I wish I hadn’t written Man on Edge so long. Later drafts needed a lot of cutting. I’m trying to be tighter with the next one.

Read our full interview with Humphrey Hawksley at: www.TopShelfMagazine.net www.TopShelfMagazine.net MARCH 2020 5 TopShelf Magazine MARCH 2020 INTERVIEWS