Author Alex Gerlis talks to us about his latest spy novel Agent in the Shadows and gives us a sneak peek at his upcoming new series, inspired by events from the Second World War and the Cold War.
Alex Gerlis was born in Lincolnshire. He was a journalist with the BBC for nearly 30 years before leaving in 2011 to become a full-time author.
His first novel, The Best of Our Spies, was inspired by his work covering the 50th anniversary of D-Day from Normandy. He followed this with three further novels in the Spy Masters series: The Swiss Spy, Vienna Spies and The Berlin Spies. 2021 saw the publication of the first novel in a new series, Prince of Spies, in the Richard Prince Thrillers series. Alex is currently working on his Wolf Pack Spies series.
His latest book Agent in the Shadows is book three in the series and is published by Canelo action on 9 February 2023. You can find all of Alex's books on our catalogue.
That’s a hard question – not least because it was so long ago! I don’t recall having any heroes as such, certainly any that I can remember now – or ones I can connect with my writing.
There was an enormous leap of faith about it, because despite having been taken on by a top agent, I knew enough about the world of publishing to appreciate that there is an enormous distance between writing a book and getting it published. Its’s not been a straightforward journey, but thankfully nearly twelve years after leaving the BBC I’ve had eleven books published.
I often wonder about that and I think it’s due to a number of reasons. One of these is probably due to the fact that for a number of years – perhaps well into the 1960s – the war was too recent and perhaps expressing an interest in it may have felt insensitive. I think another reason is that in recent years, more and more information about the war is released, thus fuelling interest in it.
Also, I think the Second World War has a definite ‘beginning, middle and end’ quality to it, in that there was a clear lead up to it in the 1930s, then it began in 1939 and ended in 1945 – and I think that helps both writers and readers, one is dealing with a very defined period and sequence of events. Added to that is the very dramatic nature of the war, the appalling events in it and the fact that it was perhaps the first war to be recorded for posterity in the way that it was.
There are a number of elements to my books, all of which are dependent on each other. My books come in series (of either three or four), so I’m looking first for two or three very strong principal characters who can be sustained over the series. The characters have to be plausible and people to whom I (and therefore the reader) can relate to. I spend quite a lot of time thinking about the main character – imagining them and their life, thinking about their life and how they’d react. They have to be interesting but not unlikely. Then I look for the historical context and the locations for each story (which I try and visit) and how they can work chronologically across three books.
Each of my series has two or three central storylines that runs through them and then each book tends to have its own core plot, based on real historical events in the war.
Agent in the Shadows is the third and final book in the Wolf Pack series, which features two British agents as its main characters: Sophia von Naundorf is the wife of an SS officer and Jack Miller is an American journalist. In this book they are sent into Lyon in Nazi Occupied France to assist a resistance group with strong links to British intelligence.
In reality, Lyon was regarded as the capital of the French resistance, with an especially brutal Gestapo run by the notorious Klaus Barbie. The city of Lyon is in many ways part of the plot: when I went there to carry out my research, I was intrigued by the traboules – the network of hidden passageways which run through the ancient quarters of Lyon and which were used to great effect by the resistance. They feature strongly in the book.
I’ve now signed up with my publisher Canelo to write a new series – four books running from the mid-1930s to the mid-1950s covering the rise of the Nazis, Stalin’s purges and communist spies, the Second World War and the Cold War. Plenty of material there!
I’d go for a book – Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. Frankl was an eminent Jewish psychiatrist in Vienna before the war who was sent to Auschwitz by the Nazis. He survived the camp – the only member of his family to do so – and this book was first published (in German) in 1946. It's partially an account of what happened in Auschwitz but perhaps more significantly, an attempt to explain how his experience in Auschwitz showed him that people can survive the most dreadful circumstances if they are able to focus on a search for meaning in their lives. It’s a short book, extremely well-written and one I’d very highly recommend.
I tend to get good reviews, for which I’m very grateful. By and large I avoid reading the ones on Amazon (I’ve had thousands of them) because I don’t want to get too worked up by the odd negative one. I think what’s most annoying is when people post a review which either gets the wrong end of the stick or gives away too much of the plot. I also get the odd comment on social media from people who evidently think the wrong side won the war, but I guess that comes with the subject matter I write about.
I’m from Grimsby, so it’s my home town team and I was hooked from the day in 1967 when I first saw them, a 3-2 home win against Bristol Rovers. As you say, supporting a football team is a life sentence but it’s one I’ve never regretted, despite some pretty desperate times. I genuinely think supporting a non-elite club is significantly more satisfying and certainly teaches you more about life. There are plenty of ups and downs in football and in that respect it’s not unlike writing a book and getting it published.
I get people insisting I must have worked in intelligence, which is quite flattering because it shows my books must have a credible feel to them. I’ve given up denying it because then those same people say my denial is proof that I was a spy. Suffice it to say, I think working in intelligence is ethically incompatible with being a journalist. But, then if I had been a spy, I would say that, wouldn’t I?
