Daniel Silva, RANSOM
[0:00]Welcome to Totally Booked.
[0:02]I'm Zibi Owens.
[0:03]I've interviewed more than 2,000 authors on this show, and learned endless amounts about
[0:09]storytelling, reinvention, and life itself, because when you talk about books, you're
[0:13]really talking about life.
[0:15]So get ready to hear from today's best authors, the best-selling, and the not yet discovered.
[0:20]Come find your next great read, and the story behind it.
[0:24]Enjoy!
[0:26]Daniel Silva is the author of Ransom, a novel.
[0:30]Daniel is an award-winning number one New York Times best-selling author.
[0:34]He has written 29 novels and is best known for his Gabriel Allen series.
[0:38]His books are critically acclaimed and have been translated into more than 30 languages.
[0:42]The four Ransom, his most recent work, was an inside job, which was another instant,
[0:46]number one, New York Times bestseller.
[0:48]Enjoy our conversation.
[0:50]Welcome, Daniel.
[0:51]Thank you so much for coming on Totally Booked to talk about Ransom.
[0:54]Congratulations.
[0:55]Thank you so much.
[0:56]Thank you for having me.
[0:57]What a pleasure.
[0:58]Oh, it's pleasure's all mine.
[1:00]I have to start by just commenting on all the importance you gave to your wife in every piece
[1:10]of your bio, your book.
[1:13]I mean, it's amazing.
[1:14]You and Jamie must have the best marriage ever is all I have to do.
[1:19]We do have a good marriage, and his somehow survived 29 books.
[1:23]She's my primary editor, and the way I go about it is that I write over a long first
[1:36]draft.
[1:37]My first draft is actually sort of like a very long outline.
[1:41]Then we take this very big piece of stack of paper, and I read it aloud to her, and
[1:48]she has a stack, and I have a stack, and we edit it aloud and take the best of what's
[1:52]in there, and it won't recraft here and there, but she's my primary editor.
[1:58]And look, there's an art and books, or passionate things, and so we get it.
[2:04]She always wins, by the way.
[2:06]I never prevailed in a showdown about anything that's in the book, but she's just a professional
[2:16]journalist, very savvy person, smart person.
[2:20]She's really become a good editor.
[2:22]Oh, that's amazing.
[2:23]Well, now it makes sense.
[2:24]I found myself thinking, is she writing all this coffee for him?
[2:28]Is she writing the website and everything?
[2:32]And it was funny, but...
[2:34]No, but she does.
[2:35]She does supervise and handle that aspect of it for me.
[2:42]She acts as my agent as well and business manager.
[2:47]So yeah, I mean, if you hold up that cover again, I mean, she had a big role in designing
[2:54]that cover, actually, that one is hers.
[2:58]This cover is beautiful.
[2:59]By the way, the whole book took us to so many places, which was really phenomenal.
[3:05]It'd be Z2 and UK to Denmark.
[3:08]I mean, just really Russia, very interesting and transported me everywhere, which is really
[3:14]amazing.
[3:15]So I know I started with you and your wife, but we do have a couple at the center of
[3:19]this narrative, as well as you could say, two couples.
[3:23]The one in which the wife goes missing, one in which they're charged with finding said
[3:28]wife.
[3:29]Yeah.
[3:30]Why don't you share with listeners what this novel is about, and this is your 28th or 29th?
[3:36]29th.
[3:37]29th.
[3:38]29th.
[3:39]26th in the Alon series.
[3:41]And as you pointed out, as this one opens, Gabriel somewhat reluctantly agrees to track down
[3:49]a very prominent missing British socialized, this dazzling, beautiful woman named Alice
[3:55]Winter.
[3:57]And one thing leads to another is often the case in the Gabriel Law novel, and he discovers
[4:02]that Alice has a very dangerous secret.
[4:06]That it is a secret that's going to force him to find his way back to a life that he
[4:12]thought he had left behind.
[4:13]It is a fast-paced, entertaining, page-turner.
[4:18]It's sort of part of, you know, in Naptrama, part internationals for other.
[4:24]Mainly, it's just a lot of fun.
[4:27]It's got a big, big ending, a shocking twist at the end.
[4:30]It's just the perfect book to take to the pool or the beach this summer.
[4:33]Yeah.
[4:34]And it's written, let me ask, it's written in an elegant fashion, but it's very, very
[4:40]readable and fast, I think, and I hope that you agree.
[4:45]I found that this one moves like the wind, my son-in-law, who's a really busy banker at
[4:50]Borgon's family, sat and read it in two cities the other nights.
[4:55]The last, we can't, it's really because it's a, it's a golfable book.
[4:59]I would agree with that.
[5:00]A golfable book is a great way to sit in.
[5:03]I was putting pages very quickly.
[5:05]It opens with four women from Cambridge who go on a girls' trip that goes horribly
[5:11]awry.
[5:12]First, Phoebe leaves early, then Alice goes missing, which we don't find out to later,
[5:18]a little bit later.
[5:19]You set it up, so it's like the height of relaxation and then quickly goes into a very
[5:25]dark narrative, where we are following different threads and finding out what really happens,
[5:32]which we find out a little bit in the middle of the book.
[5:36]We, we actually, I won't give anything away, but talk a little bit about your process
[5:42]when you are trying to make these twists and turns and involve all the elements at your
[5:49]fingertips.
[5:50]Yeah.
[5:51]You decide, like when am I going to reveal this?
[5:53]When am I going to reveal that and what does that do to the reader?
[5:57]You know, I used to say that I didn't have a process, but I get to ask that question
[6:05]all the time.
[6:06]I don't have a process.
[6:08]I'm sorry.
[6:09]No, no.
[6:10]No, no, I'm going to, and I've discovered very late in my career that I really do have
[6:16]a process.
[6:17]I don't start with the blank page, but I see maybe about that much, but if it's an art
[6:25]like this.
[6:26]A hundred pages or so of what's going on, and I get to work as quickly as I can.
[6:33]I mean, typically I start the new book, the day after I finish the old one in part, because
[6:40]I, I very uncomfortable when I'm not writing every day, but second is the only way I can
[6:45]get the previous book out of my head.
[6:47]You know, I'll sit in the middle with it to the very end, and I get going very quickly.
[6:53]In the process of working through those first few chapters, I generally sort of see everything
[6:58]that's going to, you know, that first chapter of the Spore Women on holiday, everything
[7:05]is foretold in those pages if you look back at it.
[7:08]And there's a lot of weight in that in that sequence at the beginning.
[7:14]It seems like, and there's a lot of baggage between the four women, too, as it turns
[7:19]out.
[7:20]So what I try to do is I have a, as I said in the beginning, you know, a contiguous
[7:26]book that's maybe a tiny bit overwritten, but that's okay.
[7:29]It's much easier to edit down than it is to edit up.
[7:33]So we edit down down.
[7:35]I do some recasting and rewriting here and there.
[7:39]I have some new material that inevitably finds this way into the book in the rewrites.
[7:45]But look, at a certain point, you know, I write the way I write.
[7:48]I think the way I think and it does, you know, I do go on instinct a lot and I think
[7:54]most writers do.
[7:55]Well, you've had time to really get to know Gabriel after all yours.
[8:00]But I appreciate that even now you're still explaining to us the reader what exactly is
[8:05]involved in art restoration because that is fascinating, bar none.
[8:10]That is what he does and when he's not, you know, a former, you know, I do feel that
[8:16]like I need to, to at least, you know, even though my fans, you know, have a basic sense
[8:21]of what's going on to give a little bit of a primer on what it means to restore a painting.
[8:27]You know, it needs to take off all the dirt and junk, but all the previous restorations
[8:32]take it down to its truest state and build it back up again and most four and 500 year
[8:40]old works of art, which is Gabriel specializes in that field, they're pretty damaged.
[8:44]So, and you have to paint the way if you're working on a tissue, you have to have
[8:49]tissue and spread strokes.
[8:51]If you're doing a gentle red or you have to paint that to retro, if you're very, very
[8:54]nice, they have to paint like very noisy.
[8:56]So he's very skilled and he is, you know, probably the, as I say, probably, you know,
[9:01]the best for art restore in the world at this point.
[9:04]And as we've seen in some past books, he's a pretty good art for it as well.
[9:08]And most restore most restorers are.
[9:10]Have you ever taken like the actual pads and touched these famous works of art and to
[9:15]try it yourself?
[9:18]To try to, to try to, I have been allowed to, I show the process of him where you get
[9:24]to the stuff off and I have been allowed to do that, but I have never put paintbrush to
[9:30]a to a painting before now.
[9:32]But I've, you know, I mean, studying the craft, I've had some exciting moments.
[9:38]I was, I was once able to hold the signature work of the National Gallery, woman with
[9:43]the parasol, the Monet, I have to be able to hold that in my hot little hands.
[9:47]I was actually once able to hold an actual Leonardo in my hands, yeah, the Leonardo
[9:53]at the Vatican, the nature around this there.
[9:57]So yeah, it's been fun and game.
[10:00]real is sort of a kind of a revered figure in the restoration community, you know, a lot
[10:06]of art restores to read the series. And for that reason, you know, I try to try to get the details
[10:13]right. I love that. Made me want to try my hand at it myself. But you also raise a really important
[10:21]issue, which is the lack of funding for some of the new exhibitions and restoration, all of it,
[10:27]and how places even like the National Gallery are relying on private donors to to backstop
[10:33]the leaking funds, I would speak. It was especially in Britain and anyone who follows the news that
[10:40]knows the Great Britain's public finances are in disarray right now in the country, the
[10:45]politics of the country are disarray. And when pennies are heightened and budgets are tight,
[10:51]you know, the arts are always the first thing to go. And so it's sort of sad because they
[10:56]you know, if you, as I said in the in the authors note, I believe, you know, you had the national
[11:02]portrait gallery, their national portrait gallery had to raise a lot of money for big restoration.
[11:06]So not covered with in effect naming rights and the names of donors are all over the exhibition
[11:13]rooms. And I don't think that's right. It is a shame, but it is what it is, is where we are.
[11:20]Well, we go from this very sort of genteel world of of art and you know, a quiet
[11:28]studio to towards the end drones and attacks. And I had an answer to that. And oh my gosh,
[11:36]I'm like, where am I going now? This is like quite a hold on to your seats type of book.
[11:41]Talk a little bit about that because obviously drone attacks and all of these new hybrid methods
[11:48]quite in the news these days as well. And you managed to tie it all in very seamlessly.
[11:54]Look, everyone who who reads my books know that that I've been focused on the on the
[12:00]fret from Russia, particularly as it plays out in the European setting for for many, many books.
[12:06]And you know, a lot of people don't realize that Russia isn't only at war with with Ukraine
[12:12]right now. Russia is waging a clandestine secret shadow war against Western Europe.
[12:20]They want to destroy NATO. They want to destroy the the liberal Western order. They view it as an
[12:26]existential threat to Russia. They want to destroy the global, the post-war global order as we know
[12:32]it and replace it with one that is from the to Russia. And you know, no one has been able to
[12:38]explicitly link the drones activities that the event took taking place to Russia. But the
[12:47]Danes made it very clear that Russia was involved in it. And it's just it's something that I've been
[12:54]fascinated by and watch these these series of attacks with rising alarm. And I got I got to write
[13:00]about this and and this this is the way to do it. I'm not going to say how we get from a
[13:06]Ignat British socialite to a drone attack on London. But yes, I hope it's a seamless as you said
[13:14]it was. I think that I did it very, very smoothly made and made the transition throughout the book.
[13:21]Indeed. I think so too. Okay. Yes. And I won't give anything anything away that leads you know
[13:28]throughout throughout all of that. Do you ever worry? I mean, there were there were times in the book
[13:34]where Gabriel's, you know, kids were were brought up and you know, very personal threats to him.
[13:41]Do you worry yourself as an author of this type of book, you know, investigating countries and
[13:50]really scary stuff to put it mildly that you yourself could ever be embroiled in this world?
[13:58]Then I could be targeted by Russia. Yeah. You know what? If they would waste time going after
[14:05]someone like me, you know, then that means we're all very a lot safer. That said, I would not
[14:11]go to Russia right now. And I would not travel. Look, I am I am a Russian democracy activist. Okay.
[14:22]I am I first to admit that I oppose Vladimir Putin and everything he stands for.
[14:28]And you know, I put myself in that position. So I would not I love the time I've spent in Russia,
[14:34]but I would not go back right now. I don't think really any really prominent American should be
[14:41]traveling in Russia right now. And I would sort of stay out of referee states where their
[14:47]Russian intelligence is active. But then again, you know, and that's just me looking after myself.
[14:53]I don't think that I have anything to wear. They have bigger problems right now.
[14:57]I this some of the estimates that have come out of the Russian battlefield losses are just
[15:04]staggering, you know, 750,000 dead things like these new numbers that are coming out. And you know,
[15:13]history doesn't bode well for for Russian leaders who lose wars like this and and this scale.
[15:20]So yeah, you know, as I say at the end of the authors note, I think that we need to
[15:27]start it doing doing do on to others as they would do on to us and that we ought to be
[15:32]trying to undermine him the way that he's trying to undermine the West. That would be what
[15:37]President Silva would do. Interesting. Well, never say never. There's sure ways to get involved.
[15:51]I also have to ask this tiny detail. Do you have a Range Rover because we have
[15:55]I do not have a Range Rover. No, I do not. Okay, that one's a bad thing.
[16:01]When you write the same character for so many years, do you ever like do you ever have issues
[16:09]with Gabriel or do you ever say like gosh, I wish she wasn't acting this way, but I have to make
[16:13]sure he does this or like do you and Gabriel as sort of people, even though Gabriel is not real,
[16:19]like have differences of opinion. I know it sounds bizarre to say when it's your character,
[16:24]but sometimes these things happen. First of all, let me say that to me,
[16:28]he's extremely real. When I'm discussing the book with my wife, you refer to him by his name,
[16:34]you talk about him as though he's a real person. I'm intrigued by parallel universe theories.
[16:40]I think that I've put given so much energy and thought that there's somewhere out there,
[16:44]these characters, you know, live their lives and I sort of drop it on them. Everyone's
[16:51]around, eavesdrop on them and try to, you know, pick them up in mid sentence at the beginning of
[16:56]a book and start the next adventure. No, I don't have any differences of opinion, but the guy,
[17:01]he's a, you know, I have changed him. The character has evolved. He has changed and the books
[17:09]have a lighter tone and a lighter cast. You probably didn't notice that he never carries a gun
[17:18]in this book any longer. It's a different character than what he once was. And I love writing him.
[17:25]He has a wonderful sense of humor. He has, obviously, he's a restorer in it. Art is his great eyes.
[17:32]Okay. When you have a character with eyes like that and the way he sees things differently,
[17:40]the way he looks at a scene and it turns into a painting in his thoughts, you know, like,
[17:45]he's just got a great pair of eyes. And the other thing is by the series that I would say is
[17:51]the secret sauce is the people around him. I have a wonderful supporting cast of characters
[17:58]that range from Prime Minister of United Kingdom is a friend, spies. The Pope is a friend of his.
[18:06]Those second areas of supporting characters are what makes the series, in my opinion.
[18:11]And you do sort of lightly poke fun at the, the social media divas of the world who are
[18:20]what you really think about that. First of all, I am not allowed to post. I do not know how to log
[18:26]into my social media accounts. Everything it's Jamie does that for me. Look, here's the, you know,
[18:33]you can sort of see what's going on behind me here. I, yes, I have computers in my office. But when
[18:38]I'm working, I keep my phone in another room. I don't know, I don't know what's going on in
[18:43]social media where it's being said on social media. I try to detach myself as much as I can from
[18:49]all the clutter and noise. And there's the only way that, you know, I don't know how people can
[18:54]write fiction while at the same time being plugged into all these other little distractions,
[19:00]you know, I typically lie on the floor when I write, I write in long hands and I want it
[19:04]really, really quiet with, with no interruptions. And so social media is just not a part of my
[19:08]life. You lay down. I'm not, I'm not a consumer of it or, or a purveyor of it. But it has changed the
[19:16]world. It has changed the world. It's changed the way we communicate. It has changed our politics.
[19:22]It is had a huge, huge impact. Well, having been in the publishing game, so to speak, for, for
[19:28]many years, what, what are you seeing now that's an improvement over the past? Because I think
[19:33]an improvement? Yeah. Everyone gets quick to say, this is worse. This is worse. Have you seen any
[19:38]upside in, in what's going on in publishing? Yeah. With your books, with, you know, touring with
[19:44]anything you've seen. I mean, I know we've mentioned social media, but, you know, the landscape has
[19:48]changed since your first book came out. Like, oh my gosh. Those are the before times when I first came
[19:55]out. I mean, we had multiple national chains.
[20:00]We have multiple regional chains Amazon was that I didn't even know what Amazon was when I first published my first novel
[20:07]My father-in-law had to explain to me what it was and
[20:11]there was this
[20:13]little
[20:14]Addendum to my first contract that talk about
[20:19]electronic books, you know, they didn't exist. What is this? What are you know, they were trying to?
[20:26]You know be able to publish those and and by a lawyer
[20:29]Spotted it, you know, we didn't even know what they were yet, but it was it was coming and now everything has changed and
[20:38]And the other thing that's going on is that I think that just the overwhelming
[20:42]Volume of we were talking about social media, you know, these things
[20:47]What's available on our phones in terms of content and video?
[20:52]That there's just a lot of competition for people's time
[20:55]And then there's the other shocking development that's happened in the last couple of years is that men to a very large extent have stopped reading
[21:03]Yeah, and you can sort of you can sort of see it in the
[21:07]You know the weekly bestseller list for example the women women's fiction is rain supreme and just met men are just not reading the way
[21:14]They once did so does that worry you you know what it worries me
[21:20]Look, I I I revere books. I mean, I've I'm a lifelong
[21:25]Reader, I am a reader first and write or second. I love to read
[21:30]If you could see what's around me. I'm surrounded by books and this is just one of my offices and libraries
[21:36]So I find it a little odd, you know, I can't go anywhere without a book if I have to go shopping with my wife or something
[21:43]You know, I take a book with me. I don't go anywhere without a book and and a lot of that doesn't
[21:48]Folks don't matter the way they once did to a lot of people and that does trouble being and that does worry me
[21:55]but the industry is
[21:57]Adapting and and trying to find its way and it's it's going to be an interesting view
[22:01]I mean, it's it's by the way. It's not just publishing. It's a newspaper industry has been decimated
[22:06]magazine the industry look like goodness time and news we
[22:10]Gone for all the extensive purpose that tends to purposes
[22:15]motion pictures in theater motion pictures
[22:18]releases not the way they once were so everything is changing. It's changing very quickly
[22:23]The what by the way, it's going to get faster and faster. What say I starts?
[22:27]Sure. What brings you hope then for this chapter?
[22:31]This is what brings you hope right now. Yep
[22:37]You know, I have to say that I am I am a little
[22:41]My friends teach me about this, but I'm a little alarmed about where we are right now in terms of
[22:46]the politics of our country politics of the West
[22:51]There is a day a country in Europe. It's an old liberal democratic. I'm using small l small d
[22:58]Country that isn't going through
[23:01]Political upheaval. I mean great written for heaven's sake is in complete and utter turmoil
[23:06]The climate is changing so quickly AI is going to
[23:11]I'm afraid decimate the knowledge economy and other segments of our economy
[23:16]These are going to seem like the golden age. There's the look a lot of change is going to be coming at us
[23:22]Very very quickly. Wait, but where was the hopeful thing in that?
[23:28]I look at the human sir and incredibly
[23:33]Resilient and we have have gone through
[23:35]We have adapted to new technologies
[23:38]Over and over again in the last couple of hundred years and made particular from the industrial revolution forward
[23:45]But this is going to be this is going to be a rough ride. This is going to be a rough ride in the next few years
[23:50]And I but it gives me things to write about
[23:55]All right last question. What do you think Gabriel would be reading right now?
[24:00]He is a and I drop a little hints about
[24:04]House incredibly well read and how smart he is
[24:08]so he he reads a lot of history
[24:12]A lot of important nonfiction
[24:14]But but he does read really really good
[24:17]Literary fiction and he's he he the other thing about him is that he's so multi-lingual that he can read
[24:24]As I pointed out he can read read books in their original language
[24:27]Just some things like that. He reads to be really reads French and reads Italian obviously
[24:33]And so he he's very very very well read. I don't know what's on his nightstand right now, but something good
[24:40]That's great. Well now thanks to you
[24:42]We can all have this something good on our nightstands. So congratulations on ransom and thank you very much. Thank you
[24:49]Hats off to your wife as well for all this
[24:52]Pass along your greetings. Please do all right. Thanks so much. Take care. Thank you. Bye bye
[24:59]Thank you for listening to totally booked with zibi formerly momstone have time to read books
[25:04]If you loved the show tell a friend leave a review follow me on instagram at zibi Owens and
[25:11]Spread the word. Thanks so much. Oh and bye the books