BEST AUTHOR BEST : MARK GREANEY [2]

 

.-  Do you have any sources in the C.I.A. that help with your research?

I speak exclusively with ex-agency personnel, but I do have quite a few contacts who are currently employed in other government agencies, as well as the military.

When I worked with Tom Clancy years ago it opened a lot of doors for me.

.-  How do you know when you've included enough technical information to make spycraft believable ? How do you know when enough is enough?

This is a topic I discuss with others all the time. There's danger of going too deep into the weeds with details, and I never want my books to feel like advertisements for certain brands of equipment, or how-to manuals of vehicle surveillance tactics or other esoteric aspects of tradecraft.

A little goes a long way.

.-  What's the most memorable thing that happened to you as research?

I don't suppose I'll ever top flying in a Navy F-18  over the Gulf  Of Mexico, making seven and a half  G turns, passing Mach 1, and flying in formation during strafing runs at a Navy range near Hattiesburg,  Miss.

The most intense two hours of my life!

.-  How do you name your characters?

My answer is absurd, but true. I go online and pull up the website of the national volleyball league in whatever nation my character is from.

I then pick a couple teams at random, then find giver names on one team and surnames on the other,  making sure the names work well together and don't sound like too much like other characters in the same book.

I use volleyball because it's random ' nobody knows volleyballs '  players names !

.-  Did the casting of Ryan Gosling in '' The Gray Man'' affect how you continue to write the character?

I thought he was a perfect choice, very in line with the Court Gentry in the books, so his casting hasn't really has changed how I write the character. Gosling played him capable but vulnerable, smart but fallible, and that's how he's written.

.-  You're organizing a literary party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sir Winston Churchill and David Sedaris. That would be a weird night.

The World Students Society thanks The New York Times.