Tom Cain is the pseudonym of an award-winning journalist, with 25 years’ experience working for Fleet Street newspapers, as well as major magazines in Britain and the US. During the course of his career he has conducted several hundred in-depth interviews with senior politicians, billionaire entrepreneurs, Olympic athletes, movie stars, supermodels and rock legends. He has investigated financial scandals on Wall Street, studio intrigues in Hollywood and corrupt sports stars in Britain. The first Western journalist to cross the border into Serbia after the US bombing campaign of 1999, he has lived in Moscow, Washington DC and Havana, Cuba. He edited four magazines, published over a dozen books, wrote film-scripts before beginning the ‘Accident Man’ series of thrillers, which now includes ‘No Survivors’ and ‘Assassin’. His work has been translated into more than 25 languages.

Tom Cain lives with his family in Sussex, England. In his spare time he a is fanatical supporter of West Ham Utd FC and the Washington Redskins; a fan of 24, Life on Mars, Flashman, Elmore Leonard, Oldboy and The Black Book; a lousy guitarist but a half-decent singer; and an enthusiastic, but unsubtle gardener.

I’m honestly not sure … I think it was simply that writing has always come as naturally to me as breathing. It’s always come incredibly easy – too easy sometimes, because facility can actually stop one doing the work that’s needed to get to something deeper and stronger. I can’t say that I always wanted to be a writer. But I always knew that whatever I did in life, writing would always be part of it.

I do have a day-job … as a freelance journalist. So when I’m not writing, I’m writing!

Well, my books work to an annual schedule. In January I deliver my new manuscript (though Assassin was actually February, for reasons beyond my control). Then I work with my editor on and off through till about the beginning of April. Then it comes out in July. Meanwhile, I’ve already started thinking of the next book as I’m finishing off the last one. I try to have at least 20,000 words down by the summertime. Then it sits around for a while while brilliant folks at my literary agency tell me why it’s crap and I wonder what the hell I’m going to do with it. Then in around October I start panicking and the pace of writing and anxiety gradually builds up and up and I usually do the last 10-20,000 words in about a week. Then I hand it in and the whole thing starts again.

No Survivors was an absolute bastard to write! Partly it’s just the general problem with second novels. They’re like bands’ second albums … The first one is filled with ideas you’ve been storing up for ages, you put all your heart and soul into it, and then someone says: ‘Great. Where’s the next one?’ But I made it much harder form myself by doing two crazy things. First, I came up with a plot that is just insanely complicated and multi-layered … I mean, I think it’s a good plot, with lots of strong ideas, but it was technically very challenging indeed. And then, just to put the cherry on top, I began the book with Carver in hospital, pretty much a vegetable as a result of what happened at the end of The Accident Man (the two books are basically Accident Man pts 1 and 2, in the sense that there is a direct continuity). And having my protagonist as nimble and quick-witted as a mouldy turnip for the first 120 pages was, uh, challenging, shall we say?!

Just that it rocks! It’s deliberately much simpler and more direct than No Survivors. There’s much less of a conspiracy element (though it’s still there to a degree), and much more of a knock-down, drag-out fight between Carver and his antagonist, a guy called Damon Tyzack. He served with Carver in the Royal Marines and blames him for his dishonorable discharge and the effect that had on his life, and is determined to get his revenge. So although there’s a whole big sub-plot about global slavery, a US President who’s determined to end it and a plot on that President’s life, the key to the story is in the characters: Carver, Tyzack, and Carver’s new girlfriend, Maddy Cross. And of course there’s a ton of action (the last two-thirds of the book is pretty much one gigantic, extended sequence with a few pauses for breath) and the usual global locations, including Dubai, North Carolina, Oslo (Norway), Paris, London, Bristol (England) and Maddy’s ranch up near Cascade, Idaho. He certainly racks up the Air Miles, Carver!

Samuel because I wanted something biblical that wasn’t Daniel (see below for explanation) and Carver because … errr … you know what? I don’t know where the hell I got Carver!

This is a very sensitive subject! The short answer is, yes. But I mentally cast Craig as Carver a year before he was cast as Bond. I’d seen him in Lara Croft Tomb raider, and I liked the fact that he looked tough, and quite cool, but not too smooth and handsome. Those were qualities I wanted for Carver. In fact, Samuel Carver was originally Daniel Carver, as my nod to him. Then Craig got the 007 gig and I had to re-imagine him physically. And then I saw Casino Royale and was just blown away – and appalled! – by the similarities. Funnily enough, one of the guys who wrote Casino Royale, Rob Wade, lives near me in Sussex and we’ve talked about this … the truth is we were both working from the same premise: reworking a Bond-style character in a more modern, emotionally truthful, bullshit-free way. So we came to similar conclusions. That said, there is a fundamental difference with Carver, which is that he is not on Her Majesty’s Secret Service, or anyone else’s service. He learned that lesson the hard way. Also, he’s less of a smoothie than Bond is, even now.

As many as people want to pay for!

Well, I wrote a (very!) short story in three parts called Bloodline, which arose from a bunch of online exchanges on Twitter and facebook. We’ve had a lot of debate in the UK about the way our government signs up to America’s wars, sends our kids out to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, then lumbers them with pitifully inadequate equipment and throws their lives away. So I imagined Carver discovering that an old mate of his had died in Afghanistan because we didn’t have the helicopter needed to extract him from a dangerous situation … and then I wondered how Carver might exact revenge on the British Prime Minister. So that just ran on Rap Sheet – three episodes on consecutive days - and my feelings about it are that I really liked the episodic format, which is kind of a nod back to the way that 19th century writers worked, but in a 21st century medium. People who like my stuff liked Bloodsport. And it got me a really nice mention in the London Sunday Times. So all-in-all I think it worked and is definitely worth repeating and, with any luck, building into something bigger over time.

Well, I’m contracted to do one more Accident Man book in the UK. Beyond that point, it will depend on how Assassin does in paperback as to whether it’s worth moving on to 5 & 6 … seems a pity to kiss Carver goodbye now, tho, just when we’re all getting to know him. But I do have a lot of ideas I’d like to pursue, including one standalone – more of a psychological mystery – that I feel really good about. Film-wise, Accident Man was at Paramount, but they couldn’t get a screenwriter they liked and the option lapsed there. Now, ironically, it’s found a pair of writers who have very close ties with another studio. So I’m hoping it’ll find a new life there.

Pray … Pray that the economy recovers. Pray that publishers recover their nerves. Pray that someone somewhere finds a way to monetize writing of all forms online. Pray that you get a movie deal. Because honestly, I think that the prospects for writers who are not already celebrities in other fields, or freakishly lucky in this one, are seriously screwed. And it doesn’t matter how good you are, either. I mean, I hate to be pessimistic, but all the printed-word, pulped-wood industries are falling to pieces around our ears.

Relax … my real-life existence is one of peaceful domesticity, not to say profound boredom, with narry a bullet, bomb or plummeting aircraft to puncture the somnolent peace of my rural idyll … he lied!