I suppose we should start at the beginning. My reading evolved through Enid Blyton’s Secret Seven and Famous Five series, to Captain W.E John’s Biggles then C.S Forrester’s Hornblower, and Ian Fleming’s James Bond. Next I think came Dennis Wheatley and the Duke de Richleau series. Wheatley is an important influence because he had a habit of weaving his plot and characters through historical events and people. I’m sure he’s who I got that from.

More recently I’ve enjoyed reading C.J Sansom’s Shardlake series, several Hemmingway’s, T.E. Lawrence, Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey novels, John Le Carre, the Bruno books by Martin Walker and the Harry Bosch books of Michael Connelly. Of course these are just a small selection, but I think they have all had an influence on my writing, in one way or another. I’ve just started reading Clash of Eagles by Alan Smale. I feel I’m actually there in his battle scenes. I’m looking forward to reading more of the Eagle series between writing more of my Standen series.