our sort of Jeffrey Archer arc, if you will, by telling us about the first time you can remember hearing about him or at least picking up your

first Archer book.

Well, I can remember that very well.

I was 21 years old and that coincided with the publication of Not a Pennymore, not a penny less.

And at that time, I was already striving to be a writer.

I was published, I think, when I was 22, so it was a year before that.

And I remember vividly reading the book because it was such a terrific book.

Are there other aspects of Geoffrey's writing career that kind of impacted you or that you enjoyed to read or that you look back on fondly?

Can you talk a little bit about where, what are the Hawthorne and Horowitz mysteries and where did the idea come from?

I'll tell you, when my publisher asked me to write a series of murder mystery stories, I had to start thinking about what I could do that was different, because that to me is sort of the most important thing about writing.

I want every book I write to be a little bit different, to explore new things and to approach, you know, even the murder mystery, the whodunit, to try and take it somewhere it hasn't been.

And so I had this idea, and this is the story of the books about a detective called Hawthorne, who is has been fired from the police for reasons that are unclear, who is a difficult character.

There are things in his life that have made him into a damaged person.

And he's working as a private detective.

And this detective decides that he is going to find a writer to write about him, to write about his death.

It's a lovely

How important was it to you that Susan facing her attacker get the final word in here?

But when you're writing what has become almost a long-running series, we now have done three seasons of it, you're always looking to do something new, something different, something you haven't done before, something that will make the whole show stand out.

And for me, it was that scene.

I mean, first of all, the fact that Michael Maloney agreed to come back for one day's filming, which is how long it took to shoot, incredibly, because the whole scene, I think, goes on for about 18 minutes.

They managed to do it in one day, which is all he had time for, was itself remarkable.

But to have actors of that caliber, and as you say, a brilliant director too, Creating a scene, which is all words, it's all dialogue.

It's just all down to performance.

Is that still in the works? And what can you say about the possibility of returning to Susan Ryland?

To quote the question Susan herself poses to Eliot regarding his choice of setting within Poon's last case, why Corfu?

Well, there is a story behind that, and it's to do with my wife, Jill Green, who produces all my shows and does a wonderful job at it, I have to say.

I originally set the book in the south of France.

I was very interested in having a subplot to do with the Nazis' theft of art throughout the Second World War.

Now, this has been subject of our film with George Clooney, The Monuments Men.

The Monuments Men really existed, and they were sort of American professors turned detectives, art historians turned detectives, who tried to track down the enormous amounts of art stolen largely from the Jews, but from museums all over the place.

across Europe during the war.

In the Marble Hall Murders novel, you write, quote, given the right circumstances, are we all potential killers? Was that the ultimate appeal of murder stories, that they reveal not just the facts of a particular crime, but the truth about all of humanity, that civilization and decency are only skin deep and beneath the surface, we are all potentially monsters? Is that your belief as well, that murder mystery stories can hold up the ultimate mirror for humanity?

So first of all, Anthony, best holiday you've ever been on, where were you and with whom?

I think the best holiday I ever went on was with my son, Nicholas.

I took him when he was 16, 17 on a father-son bonding holiday, and we went to Peru.

And we went to Machu Picchu.

Uh, we walked there for three days over the Andes.

Uh, we went down the Amazon.

We stayed in a camp in the jungle.

Mm-hmm

Yes

... there's, and, and lots of them are brilliant, and there, and there are so many of them.

If you want to be in this world, you've got to stand out in some way.

So I'm looking at ways of changing murder mystery and doing things to the whodunit that haven't been done before.

So by making myself a character in the book as the sidekick to a detective, I made myself not the cleverest person, the writer who knows everything, who knows who the murderer is before the murderer does.

I made myself really the most stupid person in the book.

I'm walking five paces behind the detective, Hawthorne.

Yeah

[laughs] Um, can you write anywhere? Do you have a favorite place to write? Do you have a routine?

I don't have routine.

I'm very nervous of routine.

I try to avoid it if I can.

So I don't have a sort of start time.

I don't work a certain number of words or hours a day.

Uh, I write when I want to.

Mm.

But, um, she's talking about how she's done a number of scripts-

scripts-And not heard back.

She's done these, these scripts on, on spec, as they say, and, and nothing's come back.

And, uh, and you write, "I nodded.

The great silence.

All writers live on its other side." And I thought, that's a, that's a great line, and I bet it's an insight, but I struggle to think that that's you, Anthony.

No, it is true still.

Wow

[laughs]

Uh, but, uh, but, but you know, the thing, the first thing to say is, is that writing is my life.

It has been since I was 10 years old, and it is what I most love doing, and I'm incredibly privileged, uh, to be able to earn a living from it and to, and to have based my life a- around it.

And one of the biggest worries I have is that one day I will wake up and it will stop.

Uh, I've become friends recently with Michael Frayn, one of our greatest, greatest writers.

You know, uh, he wrote Noises Off, the great play, and, um, Copenhagen about the nuclear bomb, and he told me that one day he woke up and just decided he'd had enough.

He just had...

I read it on holiday and devoured it.

And can we talk now about the Alex Rider series and how that came to be? And also when it became apparent to you that it was going to really take off and become this mega hit?

Oh, sure.

I, as I say, had written... nine or maybe ten children's books.

Those were the first books I wrote.

To this day, I don't quite know why I wrote children's books at a time when they had absolutely no currency at all.

No one gave a damn about them.

You know, this is at the time only Roald Dahl was, he was the only well-known children's writer and they had no, no one took any interest.

How did that come about? And then what is your process for taking on a project like that?

So I would like to start with you, Anthony, to advocate for Ian Fleming.

Thank you.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'd like to start by saying what a great pleasure it's been to meet David tonight and that I was a huge fan of his adaptation of A Night Manager.

Curiously, I'd have said it's the most Bond-ish of all the Le Carre novels.

The steady silver eyes of the two automatics sneered at him.