The Book of SANA’A (A City In Short Fiction)
Thriller writers with a conscience
9th June 2016
We all love a great thriller – intrigue, blood and guts, car chases, and sex. The James Bond mould… They are page turners that keep us enthralled and enraptured. 47% of all books bought in the US in 2015 were described as ‘Mystery, Thriller, and Crime…’ It is by far the largest individual genre.
This year three books have been published that combine all the attributes of great thrillers with the social and political consciences of their authors. We are not lectured in these books but, almost under the radar, the messages get across to us. We enjoy the read – and we learn something of the world in which we live. We were very pleased to be offered the opportunity to interview all three authors… they are thriller writers with a conscience.

Michael Grothaus
The first is Michael Grothaus whose book Epiphany Jones explores the world of a man with a traumatic past that leaves him subject to psychotic hallucinations and depressive episodes. He is accused of stealing a valuable painting and goes underground where he develops a relationship with a woman who believes she hears voices from God… He is involuntarily entangled in the deeply worrying world of sex trafficking, and thrust into a genuinely shocking (and darkly funny) quest to uncover the truth and atone for his historical sins.

Paul Hardisty
The second is Paul Hardisty and his book, The Evolution of Fear, focussed on environmental issues and the politics and big business that impact on them. Set on Cyprus in the 1990s, the book looks at the murky world of property development and the deliberate destruction of turtle breeding beaches to facilitate the building of holiday complexes. It is fast moving and exciting… Paul is a leading environmental scientist, and clearly knows his subject very well. We are left asking how true the story actually may be.

Yusuf Toropov
The third is Yusuf Toropov whose book Jihadi examines the dubious world of US secret service involvement in the Middle East. His ‘hero’ is a US secret service operative with a failing marriage and mental health issues. He is sent to the ‘Islamic Republic’ where he is arrested and tortured – and falls in love with his translator. Jihadi is a story that challenges conventional thoughts about Islam, and raises the inherent contradictions in the system and the way we deal with them.
Now over to our interview session with the three authors:
TF: In your recent books you have each taken a subject of social or political importance and worked it into the fabric of the story. Why did you do this and why did you choose your particular subject matter?
Michael Grothaus: In EPIPHANY JONES there’s actually two social issues I address. The first is the most dire: sex trafficking. In EPIPHANY JONES I specifically focus on the sex trafficking that goes on among the Hollywood elite. I first became aware of this over a decade ago while working for a film studio at the Cannes Film Festival. At the time I was naïve–I couldn’t fathom that slavery, which sex trafficking is a form of, even existed in the modern world. Of course it’s a much more widespread issue than in just Hollywood. Some estimates put the number of victims in human slavery as high as 50 million each year. But I was also fascinated that the abusers of sex trafficking victims weren’t your stereotypical weirdos–they were some people with considerable wealth and power.
The second social issue the novel deals with is this obsession our culture has with sex and celebrity. Ask a young adult who the shadow chancellor is and they’ll probably have no clue, but ask that same person who Kim Kardashian is and they would know immediately.
I’ve always felt it odd that we’re so obsessed or interested in these Hollywood celebrities and their lives even though nothing they do actually affects us. So what I wanted to do in EPIPHANY JONES was blend these two issues together: make a story about sex trafficking seen through the eyes of a protagonist who is the personification of America’s addiction to celebrity.
Paul Hardisty: I am an environmental scientist and engineering hydrologist, and that work has taken me all over the world, working on some pretty challenging problems. I still work full time. Over the years, I have come face to face with some shocking situations. Many have involved systemic environmental destruction or social dislocation, all too frequently driven by corruption, unfettered greed, and the uncontrolled plunder of natural resources. And it always seems that it is the poorest and most vulnerable who suffer most, and must live with the long term legacy of damage, while those that get rich from these projects walk away with impunity. Now, I feel compelled to share these issues with readers, and ask hard questions about what we are willing to accept in our society. I write about this because it matters deeply to me. It is why I write.
Yusuf Toropov: I found myself captivated by the question of Islamic identity on a personal level, and since it was playing out simultaneously in the media in ways that were not always comprehensible to me, I decided to start writing about it. Another issue was extremism, political and otherwise, and I wanted to explore the possibility that it originated in humanity itself, not in any one religious system. So those were both important areas for me as a writer and as an American.
TF: Is this a way of bringing issues you care about to the attention of the readers without appearing to lecture them?
Michael Grothaus: As a writer I care about telling good stories above all. The two issues mentioned above, put together, just happened to make a terrific story that’s dark and funny and heart wrenching at the same time. If the reader becomes interested in the global problem of sex trafficking from reading EPIPHANY JONES, that’s just an added bonus.
Paul Hardisty: Yes. I have spent the last 25 years lecturing about these issues and the solutions at universities (I am a visiting professor at Imperial College London and University of Western Australia), at conferences around the world, to companies and governments. Fact, alone, I have found, cannot sway people (the research actually backs this up). Stories can and do. Bring the reader into a good story, get them to attach to characters, and the issues just come along for the ride.
Yusuf Toropov: I not only don’t want to appear to lecture readers, I don’t want to do it. Lectures are boring. It’s someone monopolizing the conversation. But posing questions that may not have been considered deeply is fascinating. It’s inviting your audience to take up the conversation and continue it.
TF: You each employ the traditional blood, guts (and sex) of great thriller writers. Your books are page turners. How do you think this sits alongside the more serious issues that you are seeking to raise?
Michael Grothaus: There are some graphic sex or sexual situations in EPIPHANY JONES, but I think when you’re dealing with tough issues like sexual slavery, rape, and sex addiction you are doing a disservice to the victims of those horrors if you try to sugarcoat the acts to make it more digestible for the reader. The sex in EPIPHANY JONES has a point—every scene that has sex in it is there for multiple, specific reasons; it’s not 50 Shades of Grey. Could it sometimes make the reader uncomfortable? Sure, but I think good literature should provoke those kinds of feelings. Good literature should challenge us.
Paul Hardisty: In the case of the issues I am trying to explore, they are, in reality, pretty violent, and destructive. So the thriller is a perfect vehicle, although I am trying to push the boundaries of the traditional thriller (a little at least, I hope) by bringing science in strongly, and by trying to explore the issues quite deeply and in a more ‘literary’ way than many thrillers do.
Yusuf Toropov: Let me start by saying that if you’re not trying to get people to turn pages, you’re not much of a writer, and sex and violence have been reliable ways of holding people’s attention since at least the time of Sophocles. The question is whether what you write is authentic and true to the world of your story. Tarantino said something about violence that I don’t want to pretend to quote, so I’ll paraphrase: A violent scene is like a big musical number. You can say it’s done well or done poorly, but you can’t say it isn’t permitted, because it’s become part of the vocabulary of cinema. I think violence is part of the vocabulary of literature, too, whether you’re writing something you call a thriller or something you call a fairy tale. It’s part of the human condition, and it’s certainly part of any portrait of extremism. Writing about sex is a particular challenge because for something to be dramatic, there needs to be an obstacle or difficulty, a conflict, which means (to me anyway) that writing authentically about bad sex is technically easier than writing authentically about good sex — which is something I haven’t done yet. Thus far I’ve limited myself to writing about bad sex, because it’s far more interesting and because if I try to write about good sex my personal bullshit meter starts flashing red.
TF: Do you think it is possible ‘to change the world’ / attitudes to certain issues through fiction writing?
Michael Grothaus: I don’t think it could hurt, but if you only read a book, find out about some injustice because of it, and then think “that’s horrible” and put the book down then go back to your life, how has that book changed anything? Fiction can change things, but only if people act on what that fiction has revealed.
Paul Hardisty: I think fiction, done well, can reach a much bigger audience, than technical or non-fiction books on the same subject, if those subjects are ones that due to their very nature will tend to ‘turn off’ readers. Few people actually enjoy reading about environmental damage and poisoning people, about the extinction of species. I sure don’t. So if the reader can be enlightened and perhaps made to care a little bit, through a good story that’s fun to read, then, yes, perhaps fiction can change the world just a little bit. It all adds up of course. And we sure need the change.
Yusuf Toropov: Yes. That’s why I’m here.
TF: Do you think that your next works will also seek to combine an awareness of social and political issues with great thriller writing?
Michael Grothaus: Yes. I think the only fiction worth writing is the kind that holds a mirror up to society so it can see its true self better.
Paul Hardisty: I am working now on the third Claymore Straker book for Orenda Books. It will be called Reconciliation for the Dead, and is a prequel-sequel, straddling the first two books. Part of it is set in Angola in 1981 while Clay is a young soldier fighting in the apartheid-era South Africa Army against the communists, and part in 1996, when he returns to South Africa to testify to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The themes are racism, and the rampant exploitation of nature and people, at the intersection between uncontrolled fanaticism and brutal corruption.
Yusuf Toropov: Absolutely. That’s the goal. Whether someone calls it a thriller is not up to me, but the goal is to keep people turning pages and keep people thinking, because those are the books I love. The best thriller I’ve ever read is Hugo’s LES MISERABLES.
Thank you to all. You can follow the writers on Social Media:
Michael Grothaus on Twitter, Facebook and via his website
Paul Hardisty on Twitter
Yusuf Toropov on Twitter and his website
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For a selection of thrillers set around the world, just click here