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Why Is Location Research For Thriller And Spy Novels Important?

By James Marinero

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 01Feb2012 Word count: 901 Viewed: 36 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

Detailed location research, preferably on-the-spot, is essential if an author of spy novels (or other thrillers for that matter) is to capture the feel of a location and write with authority about that particular locationas the story is built and the atmosphere created.

In 2010, I was sailing in Morocco and Tunisia, a month before the revolution in Tunisia.. We were moored in the marina in Sidi Bou Said, which is hard-by the Presidential Palace, a few miles outside Tunisand was ringed by armed guards.

The palace had its own private harbour with an exclusion zone around it. Immediately to the south of the palace are the ruins of Carthage. We spent a fascinating afternoon wandering the area, overlooked by the sentries on the palace walls just a couple of hundred yards away.

Two months later the presidential palace was ransacked, and the President fled to Saudi Arabia. There was a great sense of history there, but the feel of Tunisia was coloured by the prevalent official culture of corruption. Shortly after I arrived, I sat in my cabin whilst a customs official asked me, in French, if I had any gifts for him.

Now, it sticks in the craw when faced with that sort of behaviour, but a bottle of whisky is not a lot to us. The downside is that if you do not play the game - then the bureaucratic process moves very slowly indeed. Very slowly.

Rubber Stamps and Visas

Getting that official entry rubber stamp on your documents can take a long, long time if you don't play ball with them. Some yachtsmen refuse to play, and waste a lot of time waiting around whilst officials push paper pointlessly. I don't like that culture, but life is too short so I play the game. It does give an author an extra edge when he writes about it - that feeling of unspoken threat experienced as the power of these officials is subtly made clear.

It was this very culture that led to the uprising in Tunisia, when, in Sidi Bouzid, a young man with a vegetable stall set fire to himself in the face of demands for a bribe for a licence.

The name of Mohamed Bouazizi will be remembered for what he started in North Africa and the Middle East.

Kafka

Earlier in my career, I worked in Russia on and off for a couple of years (this was during Boris Yeltsin's time) and that was a surreal, Kafka-esque experience. Travelling and working in countries which are struggling under oppressive regimes (or the hangover of such regimes) is very much to be recommended for aspiring thriller authors. I guess it is the wielding of absolute power that is frightening to me - and that can occur anywhere.

Although I haven't worked in Sicily, I have spent several months there, and was always aware of the insidious nature of Mafia influence - just another form of oppression and corruption.

Sense of Place

So, to write convincingly about a location, one has to have developed a strong 'sense of place' - just as to write well about marriage breakdown, one has to have experienced it. I've been fortunate that this year has added research in the Ionian Islands, Sicily and Malta, and I hope to portray my sense of those places in 'Sicilian Channel', and, of course, including North Africa.

Authors of thrillers and spy novels also have to write about things they may not themselves have direct experience of - for example, torture. I have written about it, having read extensively around the subject. However, there are limits to what I'll experience directly in the course of research!

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