... G W Eccles
1. Tell me about Corruption of
Power and where you got your inspiration for it?
The novel takes place in the period following Russia’s
incursion into Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. An unapologetic Russia President,
Karpev, encouraged by the paucity of the West’s response, now seeks to expand
his country’s territorial influence and control to other former countries of
the Soviet Union. However, knowing the West will retaliate with further
economic sanctions, he seeks first new markets for Russia’s massive energy
resources in Asia so as to reduce his country’s reliance on Europe. These plans
go awry and threaten to bring the violent conflict raging in the Middle East to
Russia’s own border, and Karpev commissions independent troubleshooter, Alex
Leksin, to resolve the issue. Leksin’s investigations shift rapidly from Moscow
to Turkmenistan, one of the most sinister countries in the world at the heart
of Central Asia. Here he finds himself operating against a background of
political corruption, state-sponsored terrorism and increased Taliban
insurgency.
The inspiration for the book, I suppose, is twofold. First, I
lived and worked in Russian and Central Asia from many years, dealing with
oligarchs and senior government figures on a regular basis and travelling extensively,
often to places with restricted access to foreigners. I got to know the region
well and experienced all the frustrations of operating there. While the novel
is of course fiction, many of the anecdotes are inspired by actual events.
Second, as result of having lived there for so long, I have a natural interest
in the region, so I am drawn to articles about Russia and Central Asia and
follow the local press.
2. How did you come up with the
titles for your books?
Well, there have been two books so far in the Leksin thriller
series. The title of the first, The Oligarch, really speaks for itself. The
story is about the struggle between President and oligarch when President Karpev
grabs back ownership of the massive industries the oligarchs acquired from a
befuddled Yeltsin soon after the fall of communism.
Corruption of Power refers to the famous quote of Lord
Action: ‘Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely’. In
this thriller, the corruption is at all levels: government, big business,
individual.
3. Why did you want to write
this book?
Simple, really – I felt I had a story to tell. In the first
in the Leksin thriller series, The Oligarch, the setting is an Arctic mining
town in Siberia, cut off from the rest of Russia – no rail links, sea access
only possible with a nuclear icebreaker, and flights weather-restricted. I
lived for six months on assignment in a town just like this, and when I wasn’t
working, there wasn’t little else to do. So I thought up the story of a novel
as a way of passing the time. In Corruption of Power, I spent the best part of
five years in Central Asia – it is, in parts, a profoundly disturbing place
with only a thin veneer of law and order. Travelling was a nightmare, and often
when I had to go to Ashgabat for a single meeting, I had to stay in
Turkmenistan for three-to-four days because transport was so sporadic. It was
during these periods that the spark of the idea for the thriller developed.
4. Do you find your social life
hampered by your writing?
Probably not as much as I should. Right up until the time I
have completed a first draft, I am very undisciplined, writing in fits and
starts and letting my writing interfere with my other activities as little as
possible. It is only after I have a complete first draft that I really start
devoting myself fulltime to the task, at which point I tend to shelve other
activities to a large extent until I have a draft ready to send to my team of
readers for their comments.
5. What in your opinion are the
key ingredients in maintaining a good relationship with your readers?
I have to confess to being a bit of a novice at this. I’m am
trying to establish a rapport with them through my website, by participating in
the main literary forums, by keeping them informed via twitter, and so on.
There is a contact page on my website through which I hope to interact with my
readers - and so far I have managed to answer every email sent to me via this.
I am also about to launch a monthly Corruption of Power newsletter which will discuss
aspects of the story and its characters, provide a bit of humour, and deal with
some of the more controversial matter raised in the book. My readers can
subscribe to this via the contact page of my website.
6. If you could personally have
witnessed anything, what would you have wanted to have seen?
Boris Yeltsin standing on a tank outside the White House
(Russian parliament building) in Moscow during the attempted coup in 1991.
By way of background, Mikhail Gorbachev was trapped in
Crimea, and a group of communist hardliners took advantage of his absence to
stage a takeover. It was a critical moment and threatened to put an end to glasnost and perestroika that had so abruptly torn down the Iron Curtain. The
coup’s leaders, having failed to take control of the White House, ordered in
the tanks, at which point Yeltsin climbed upon one of the tanks and boomed in
true Shakespearean tradition: “Soldiers,
officers, generals, the clouds of terror and dictatorship are gathering over
the whole country. They must not be allowed to bring eternal night." Many
of the soldiers, already concerned about the legality of their orders from the
coup’s leaders, trained their guns away from the White House and joined in its
defence.
If they had done
otherwise, who know? Russia might even now be under the shadow of communism.
7. If you could have anyone
looked into a room so that you could torment them for a day, who would it be and how would you
torment them?
Tony Blair in a basement room in Mosul. I would give him the
choice of admitting he misled the public and was wrong to wage war on Iraq, or
being released on his own into this ISIS controlled town.
8. If you were President what
would be the first thing you’d do?
Well, I’m British, so really unqualified to speak about
American politics. However, as an observer, I find it hard to understand the
lack of gun control there. Clearly the gun lobby is strong, but if I were
President, I’d continue Obama’s opposition to it.
9. What are your three biggest
pet peeves?
In no particular order:
·
cold calls (especially in the evening while I’m eating my
dinner);
·
call centres (where I am kept waiting, then moved through
several layers of option, before finally being put through to the wrong person)
·
split infinitives.
10. What is the last picture you
took on your phone?
My new bulldog puppy, Boris.
11. What is your favourite word?
Undoubtedly, ‘more’ – in the sense that Boris Johnson, Mayor
of London, put it: “my policy on cake is pro having it and pro eating it”.
12.What is the last book you
read without skipping through anything?
I have just finished re-reading John Le Carré’s A Delicate
Truth. I thought it was an awesome thriller first time round, and reading it a
second time reinforced that view. The book starts with an intelligence
operation in Gibraltar which an overly ambitious UK Minister has authorised
involving the illegal snatch of a suspected Al-Qaeda leader. The main story is
about the aftermath once the operation goes disastrously wrong. Two career
civil servants from the Foreign Office have knowledge of the operation that
threatens the Minister’s position - one nearing the end of his career, the
other at the start of his – and they are posted far apart. Eventually, though,
they meet and compare notes.
To my mind, Le Carré is the master of the thriller genre, and
stylistically he just gets better and better. His characters come to life on
the page, and as usual, it is the ‘little people’ in A Delicate Truth who are
the heroes. He writes with humour and the dialogue is, as always, faultless.
_________________________________
Ukraine is only the
opening gambit, so far as the Russian President is concerned. With his sights
set on territorial expansion and undeterred by the prospect of a new Cold War,
he intends first to shift Russia’s economic focus towards the East in order to shield
the country from the reprisals that his next move is sure to provoke. The
President delegates to his Prime Minister the redeployment of Russia's vast
energy resources, a vital component of his strategy. But when plans for a
pipeline to run through Turkmenistan and Afghanistan tilt off-course, it
threatens to spread the current conflagration in the Middle East right up to
Russia’s own borders. Against a background of political corruption,
state-sponsored terrorism and increased Taliban insurgency, the President turns
to independent troubleshooter ALEX LEKSIN whose investigations take him from
Moscow into one of the world's most sinister countries, right at the heart of
Central Asia.
Read an Extract here
About G W
George Eccles moved in 1994 from London to live in Russia
and Central Asia during the tumultuous period that followed the breakup of the Soviet Union. His work involved extensive travel
throughout Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan
and Turkmenistan
- often to places with restricted access to foreigners. During his time there,
he advised a number of real-life oligarchs how best to take advantage of the
opportunities that became available as regulation crumbled and government
became increasingly corrupt. His first thriller: The Oligarch, was awarded a
Silver Medal both at the Global E-book Awards 2013 and at the Independent
Publishers Book Awards 2013. His second novel, Corruption of Power, was
published by Peach Publishing in December 2015. He now lives with his wife –
and a cat called Lenin and a bulldog called Boris - in a hilltop village not
far from Cannes
in the South of France.
Website: http://www.gweccles.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/gweccles
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