Thrillers and two first names

Tom Rob Smith

Tom Rob Smith‘s name not only breaks the ‘only one first name’ rule, it also seemed to break the internet when I typed it into the MWF search box. Consider the pictorial accompaniment to this post hard won, people. I also wrenched this post from the jaws of the unforgiving Federation Square wi-fi. Maybe someone out there didn’t want this to be posted. [DODGY SEGUE ALERT] Sounds like something out of Stalinist Russia.

Many different paths can lead to writing books. For Tom Rob Smith, it was a personal assessment, or reassessment, of what it was he liked about writing. Though he studied literature at Cambridge, he felt that ‘stylistic’ concerns weren’t his strong point, and he found himself searching for what it was he loved in writing. Eventually, he realised that it was the all-encompassing allure of story that kept him writing, whether across film, television or novel formats. This love of story is evident in Child 44, which was originally conceived as a film, but became his first book — a Booker-shortlisted book, no less. Child 44 tells the story of a serial killer who got away with his crimes because Stalinist Russia refused to admit that he, or any crime, existed. Interested in the idea of a state that is more dangerous than the serial killer himself, Smith found that the setting of Stalinist Russia was a natural fit for the thriller aspects of his story: jeopardy came from everywhere, not just the ‘criminal’; the paranoia and fear of the time arose as startlingly from the state itself.