Although set in 2011 and obviously fiction, the background to this, the workings of Downing Street, the power struggles and manipulation …, they have got to be real, based on now, and it’s fascinating for he, of course, worked for the Government as Director of Communications and Press Secretary to several MPs. Comparison: Michael Dobbs, Edwina Currie, Sue Crosland. Similar this month: None, try Anthony Horowitz for satire, Glenn Meade for the thriller element.
Coruscating and scintillating, SPIN is a novel that cuts behind the headlines and those who make them - a stiletto-sharp, hilarious satire that exposes just how the corridors of power are really at work. It's the year 2011. The Party in power, the New Project Party is on a moral revival campaign and Selwyn Knox, the recently appointed minister for the Department for Society, is at its helm. Sonya Mair, his political adviser, is helping him call the shots - as well as helping him with some more personal matters . . .
Martin Sixsmith was born in Cheshire and educated at Oxford, Harvard and the Sorbonne. From 1980 to 1997 he worked for the BBC as the Corporation’s correspondent in Moscow, Washington, Brussels and Warsaw. From 1997 to 2002 he worked for the Government as Director of Communications and Press Secretary first to Harriet Harman, then to Alistair Darling and finally to Stephen Byers. He is now a writer, presenter and journalist. He is the author of two novels, Spin and I Heard Lenin Laugh, and two non-fiction books, Moscow Coup: The Death of the Soviet System and The Litvinenko File: The True Story of a Death Foretold. He lives in London.
