About James
James is the author of the "Gorilla Grant" series of spy novels including A Game for Assassins, Berlin Reload and the novella Gorilla Warfare which is currently being developed as a Hollywood movie. He has also written the spy story The Fisherman and the short story anthology Clandestine.
A professional intelligence and security consultant, he currently resides in the UK but likes to travel extensively around the globe; partly to research his books and partly for the adventure of it all!
In his spare time he likes to play the drums, learn the guitar and enjoy the finer things in life.
About GRAVEYARD OF SPIES
An MI6 network betrayed
A spy on the run
A
Father’s hunt for the truth
David Harkness, retired MI6 field agent and once a top operative in Tehran, has been out of the espionage game for decades. Now living in self imposed exile in Barcelona, he has cut himself off from the cloak-and-dagger world he once knew.
But when a contact from his past tells him that his daughter has gone missing in Iran, David is plunged back into a world of conspiracy, double-cross and espionage.
Set during the maelstrom of 1970’s
Pre-Revolutionary Iran and the modern terrorism war between East and West,
James Quinn’s Graveyard of Spies is a thrilling story of one man’s quest to
discover the truth and protect what he loves the most – no matter what the
cost.
An Excerpt From GRAVEYARD OF SPIES
* Note – I kind of like this scene in the book. It is relatively unremarkable, but highlights perfectly the full spectrum of an intelligence operatives life when he or she is active. One moment you can be at a grand garden party or dinner, the next you can be meeting your source in a supermarket car-park in the rain on a dismal Tuesday night and be boosting their ego up so that they will gather more information for you. Anyway, I hope you enjoy. JQ
I have been invited to Bertie Vivian’s leaving party. My lightweight summer suit has one of its regular outings. We are all gathered into the grounds of the British Embassy in Tehran. It is a garden party as only the Brits can do it; marquee, sandwiches, buckets of ice-cold white wine and of course the obligatory cake that announces, Sorry to see you go…
Bertie as usual is the centre of attention, holding court
with the Ambassador and his staff, talking about his retirement plans, which
seem to involve buying a house a stone’s-throw from Lords Cricket Ground.
Davenport is, for one last time, in Bertie’s shadow,
because he knows that this time next week, he will officially be declared the
MI6 Head of Station in Tehran, a prize that he has coveted since the moment he
got here. Eventually, the future head of
MI6 in Iran disentangles himself from the social aspects of his job and seeks
me out. We nod and move over to the
shade of the garden. Spies, even on
their home turf, have a way of feeling more comfortable in the shadows.
“It all sounds rather unlikely?” says Davenport at our
innocent-looking, but not so innocent meeting over by the garden fountain. He has clearly read my latest agent report
about Farah.
“It’s what I’m hearing from Sparrowhawk,” I say
confidently.
“Wouldn’t we have heard something from the CIA boys? I mean, they have Tehran sewn up pretty
tight?” counters the MI6 man.
I sipped at my ice-cold wine. “The Americans own the government, but I’m
less convinced that they know what’s happening on the ground here in Tehran,
maybe not even throughout all of Iran.
They have gotten fat, dumb and happy.”
There is a commotion over by the marquee and someone calls
for quiet, only later we discover that it is Bertie. A radio is tuned properly and the volume is
turned up. People from the MI6 Station
are gathered around it, like a doctor trying to listen to a heartbeat.
Davenport puts down his half empty glass of Champagne and
starts to walk quickly over to the marquee.
I follow him but at a slower pace, confused about what is
happening. It is only as I get nearer
that I can make out the words in Farsi from the BBC World News.
It turns out that the Shah’s security forces have fired on
a group of unarmed protestors in Jaleh Square.
Reports are sketchy, but the estimates coming in suggest that a dozen
people have been killed, gunned down. As
the hour moves on, we start to get reports that the number has risen until
finally it tops out at over one hundred dead Iranians on the streets of
Tehran. This day would later go down in
the firestorm of Iranian politics and be known as ‘Black Friday’.
“The Iranians have lost the plot and
the Shah has truly fucked things up!” I hear someone say by the buffet table.
“It’s the Ayatollah’s fault that bloody
Khomeini is stirring the honey pot from Europe,” I hear another throw out to
the crowd.
The following weeks are filled with
tension and death on a scale that no civilised country should have to bear, but
these are concerns for people far superior to me. My concern is in running my sources and
maintaining my cover on the street.
Policy is directed by London. I’m just a worker bee and my chief concern
is for Farah, agent Sparrowhawk. Farah, my Farah, is balancing the life of a teacher and that of my
source inside the growing underground movements that are opposed to the Shah
and his brutality.
Then, as is usual in all agent case managements, we hit
our first snag. Is it a big snag? Not at
first, no, and with a little handling it could be contained. But these things tend to grow to have a life
of their own if left unchecked.
I meet her one night after work at a café we both know and
she is late, which for Sparrowhawk is unusual.
When she finally arrives, she looks shaken, clutching her books across
her chest in a protective manner.
“What’s up?” I ask, confused by her body language. No kiss on the cheek. No smile.
No laughing.
“I have something to show you,” she says quietly.
“What?”
“Something has happened.
Something has happened to me.”
I frown. My brow
furrows. “Okay… tell me.”
By way of an answer, she looks around the half-empty café
to make sure no one is paying attention to us and then lifts up her
jumper. I see the bruises against the
right side of her ribs and finger-marks around her wrists. I remember gaping in horror at the time.
“Who did this? When
did this happen?” I say and I hear that my voice has dropped several octaves
until it is an audible growl.
For a moment, it is as if my personalities have split in
two. The shock of seeing someone I love
who is hurt, and then the cool detachment of the agent handler takes over and
practicalities return. I go to the counter and order some more tea; partly to
give myself a moment to calm down and partly to wonder how I should approach
this. Has she been robbed? My mind is in a tailspin.
“Okay,” I remember saying at the time as I poured the
tea. “Tell me everything.”
A Chat With James
Do you spend more time researching or writing?
Ohhh, that's a great question! I think writing if I’m honest although I do
enjoy the research part of the process.
I’m a travel/location fiend so I do like to look over where I’m setting
the stories.
After that the writing element comes in waves for me – it's all or nothing!! I either write like a mad man for several days and then I go through my drought spell while nothing happens for weeks on end. Then I get my second wind and the process starts all over again until it is finished! Its not a perfect system but it works for me.
Tell me about GRAVEYARD OF SPIES and where you got your inspiration for it.
GRAVEYARD OF SPIES is an espionage novel that takes place in Europe and Iran. I wanted to move away from the usual action thriller style that I am known for and try something a bit more espionage grounded.
Over the past decade I have worked with people from that part of the world and have become knowledgeable about the politics, history and culture. I can even speak a limited amount of Farsi which I really enjoyed learning.
Fundamentally GRAVEYARD OF SPIES is about the relationship between a Father and Daughter – its about family, it’s about how far you would go to protect your loved ones. Of course all of this is told through the prism of espionage. It’s probably my most personal book.
How much of the book is realistic?
Well, Iran is of course a real place with real issues and a real history. Do terrible things happen there? Absolutely yes. As for the characters, well, that is half the fun, isn’t it, for the reader, trying to figure out how much of it is real.
Lots (but not all) of the characters in the book are very, very real. I drew inspiration from multiple sources for others. And I’m afraid that’s all that I’m prepared to say about that.
What are your ambitions for your writing career?
Writing has been very, very good to me. I’ve had a great decade doing it. Obviously I want the books to do well, but predominantly I want the readers to engage with the characters and to enjoy the stories that I write. I think that should be the basics for any author.
I have a plan to return to my original character, Jack “Gorilla” Grant – the MI6 spy/assassin, next year. It’s the 10th Anniversary for my first book – A GAME FOR ASSASSINS – and I’ve been asked to write a new “Gorilla” story to celebrate – which I’m really looking forward to.
After that I have several ideas for a new book and new protagonist which I want to explore. It will still be in the espionage genre, but with a bit of a crime and possibly horror twist added to it.
Who is your role model? Why?
To be honest I’m not sure that I have role models. I know as an espionage author you are obligated to say LeCarre, Greene, Fleming, etc, - and I’ve enjoyed them all throughout my life and career. I could also add in at least another dozen artists of all denominations that have inspired me throughout the years as well.
I personally think the greatest achievement as a creative person is to develop your own momentum. Be your own role model!!
Share one fact about yourself that would surprise people.
I have this thing, not quite sure I would call it a gift, more of a quirk. But I can recognise faces even if I haven’t seen them for years or I may have only seen them once before. It's sort of a human facial recognition system that probably has some medical term for it. I don’t necessarily remember their names, but I know where it was I have seen them before and in what context. It was an invaluable skill when I worked surveillance teams or covertly.
What genre do you typically read? Why?
Oh, I’ll read anything that takes my interest – I’m certainly not locked to just spy thrillers. I’m an avid reader and can have two or three books on the go at any one time. At the moment I’m reading about Carravaggio, one about Vampires and one about Italy. So a lot going on there!
Share a favourite childhood memory.
Going on an airplane for the very first time!! It was amazing – I got to go up into the cockpit to talk to the pilots and they even let me press the button for the landing gear. Imagine doing that in this day and age.
I love to travel all over the world – I’ve been very lucky – and I think that love of travel stems from that sense of adventure.
What do you think is the biggest challenge of writing a new book?
It’s like climbing a mountain that you don’t know how big it is. It’s easy to get to the top, or so you think, only to discover that you have barely left base camp. Writing a book is like that. It’s easy to get disheartened. How many stories have I tossed away like that – probably dozens. But then you get that right story, that perfect character or piece of dialogue and it makes it all worthwhile. That’s what gets you through to the other side of the mountain.
Then when all that is done you have the dreaded marketing to do...ugh. Someone once said that writing a book is like finishing a marathon, only that when you cross the finish line and receiving your medal you get a punch in the face instead. That’s writing. That’s being an author!! But at least it teaches us to be resilient.
Do you aim for a set amount of words/pages a day?
I don’t do that. Never have, never will. That feels forced to me. I write when I have something to say, that could be a paragraph or a whole chapter. It works for me that way, but you do you.
What are your thoughts on writing a book series?
I’ve done it! I started with the Gorilla Grant books and they have been very very popular. There is a lot of hard work that goes into developing a book series, there is a bit of universe building, but its an awful lot of fun as well.
I think the trick is knowing when to stop, put a cap on it. Several well known authors stay too long at the party, I feel, and end up churning out the same old stuff year in and year out for decades. It becomes more about the money after that and I always feel that the quality suffers as a result.
I always had it in my head that the Gorilla books
would only need 4-5 books to tell his full life story. That was my end point. So this new book that is coming in 2025 can
be seen as a bit of fun, a segue way between the end of A GAME FOR ASSASSINS and the start of its sequel, SENTINEL FIVE.
But, no, I don’t intend to write Gorilla Grant books forever. I want to stretch as an author and try new directions.
Great meeting you, James! I am impressed with your output of work, and your answers intrigued me to the point of shaking my head in wonder--especially saying we should all be our own role models! Extremely well thought out and well said! Much success with your Next Chapter books!
