With the fifth ‘Nighthawk’ book heading for its paperback launch it is time to look ahead to the sixth. While it may not seem obvious I do try and find a ‘theme’ for each book – racial prejudice underlying The American Suspect for example. For the new book I hit upon eavesdropping. There are three stories in this one novel and each is founded to some degree on words being overheard – although in one case this is in fact a red herring, and the true solution lies somewhere else. The book is called The Secret Listener.

A few weeks ago I set off to the edges of north London – very close to where I was born, to visit a grand ‘country’ house, on the edge of Enfield Chase, but now firmly attached to the capital’s suburbs. Trent Park, the one-time home of the Sassoon family, has just opened as a museum called The Secret House. During the war it housed high-ranking German generals captured in North Africa, Italy and in the final battles of the war in Europe. They lived in what passed for luxury, with servants, a grand piano, and their own private rooms. What they didn’t know was that the house had been ‘wired’, and their every private word was overheard. The sign below caught my eye in the basement where our agents listened around the clock. It felt like a good omen.

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