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| Ava Glass (photo: Jack Jewers) |
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Ava Glass is a pseudonym for Christi Daugherty, who writes thrillers for teens and adults. Her previous books have sold more than 2.5 million copies worldwide in 25 languages. She lives in the south of England. Glass's debut thriller, Alias Emma (Bantam, reviewed in this issue), introduces intelligence officer Emma Makepeace.
Tell us about the inspiration for Alias Emma.
It's fair to say Alias Emma was inspired by real life. Britain has always been a hotbed of espionage. Perched at the edge of Europe but a strong ally of the U.S., it's a magnet for spies from around the world. People are murdered here with poison-tipped umbrellas, radiation in tea cups, nerve agents on door knobs--these are the headlines I'm reading. How could I not want to write about this? It's crying out to be explored.
Besides the headlines, how did you originally become interested in spies and espionage?
Before I started writing books, I worked for the British government in the department that's sort of the equivalent of the U.S. Homeland Security agency. My job brought me into glancing contact with spies, and that gave me just the merest glimpse of their world. Before then I'd been a journalist and an editor, so I knew nothing at all about espionage or intelligence work. I was a complete innocent in that way. During that time, I met a young female intelligence officer. She was in her 20s and so smart and fearless; she seemed decades older than her age, and incredibly capable. Alias Emma is my opportunity to imagine what her life might be like.
Modern-day intelligence work often relies on technology: mobile phones, tracking devices, surveillance systems. Tell us how you explore those technologies--either using them or eliminating them--as part of this story.
This is always somewhat tricky. In Alias Emma, the job Emma's assigned is extracting Michael, the son of a Russian spy who has defected to the U.K. The Russians want their asset back, so she and her husband are taken into protective custody [by British officials], but their adult son refuses to go with them. If Emma can't get him to safety, he'll be killed. He doesn't understand the danger he's in. During this rescue, Emma is ordered to use no technology that can be tracked. So, she can use no phones, bank cards, computers or tablets. At the same time, London's extensive CCTV system has been hacked by the Russians who are using the cameras to hunt for Emma and Michael. Technology is everywhere (including the CCTV cameras), but Emma can't access any of it.
Britain and Russia are old enemies (the Great Game and the Cold War both come to mind), but this story is set in the 21st century and feels very fresh. Why a British/Russian conflict?
I believe the Great Game never ended. We all thought it stopped when the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union collapsed, but we were wrong. It went on. That became quite clear when a former Russian FSB agent named Alexander Litvenenko was murdered by his ex-colleagues with polonium placed in a teapot in an expensive London hotel in 2006. That was followed by a spate of mysterious deaths of Russian exiles and former spies and government officials in the U.K. until, finally, a Russian exile named Sergei Skripal and his daughter were attacked with nerve gas in a leafy town (near where I live) in 2018. That was when it occurred to me that this secret war might make an interesting subject for a series of novels.
Much of this story is about identity. There are false identities, conflicting identities, Michael's reluctance to leave the life he's built for himself behind. Can you speak to that?
To an extent. In my time, I've changed careers, towns, even nations. Each move always feels like an opportunity to reinvent yourself. And yet, in my experience, no matter how far you travel, you can't escape yourself. The past tags along. No matter how hard you try to leave it behind, it always packs itself in your luggage. And this is one lesson that Emma Makepeace is learning in Alias Emma. She can change her appearance, her name, even her eye color--but she will always be shaped by her past.
Will we see Emma in future adventures? Can you give us a teaser?
I'm actually writing the last chapters of book two now! The second book takes Emma out of London and into an undercover operation on an oligarch's yacht in the Mediterranean. An MI6 analyst has been murdered in a bizarre way that looks like a hallmark of the Russian spy agency GRU. The Agency believes the analyst got too close to revealing a conspiracy by Russian businessmen in London to sell chemical weapons to rogue nations. But the conspiracy may run much deeper than Emma thinks. And it will take her to very dangerous places. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams