BOOKSHELF
Top crime writer David Baldacci tells about his new female FBI agent, how #MeToo is changing police attitudes and the movies that have come and gone worried,” he continues.
He has met four previous US presidents – George Bush Jnr and Snr, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama – who are all fans of his books, but he wouldn’t go into politics himself, he reflects.
“My wife told me that if I did, I’d have to do it with another wife, so no. We are a political family. We put a lot of money into campaigns, we travel and try to get messages across, but my wife has seen the life that happens to politicians. She likes our privacy and the life we lead. If I had any ambition to be a politician, my love and respect for her ‘trumps’ that.”
Yet the state of political unrest could lead to a return to Cold War novels, he agrees.
“I can see a lot of thriller writers out there who lamented the passing of the Tom Clancy days, who are licking their chops and sharpening their pencils, relishing a whole new treasure trove of opportunity.
“I may explore that, but I don’t want to be competing with the headlines. I need to write about things that are important on a human level.
“In real life, people see others get away with bad acts and no consequences. At least in a crime novel you have a bad act and the person who did it is usually punished by someone who’s trying to do good. People get out of fiction what they can’t get out of real life.”
The son of a trucking company foreman, David, whose grandparents emigrated to the US from Tuscany, grew up in Virginia and started to write short stories at high school.
He studied political science and law at university and went on to practise law for nine years in Washington, to pay his way while he carried on writing.
“As the years went by, I had to come to the realisation that I might be a lawyer for the rest of my life. But I didn’t want that,” he has said.
He still lives in north Virginia with his wife Michelle, to whom he has been married for 28 years. They have two grown-up children. Although there’s plenty of space to work in the house, he writes in an office nearby.
“My wife kicked me out of the house 15 years ago. I used to have interviewers and TV crews come into the house when the kids were young. So I have a staff who do a variety of my scheduling, travel and other stuff and it allows me to focus on my writing. I’m a workaholic. Being able to do this for a living is my vacation.”
He has a lakehouse in southern Virginia, where the family goes water ski-ing and sailing, and another home in Florida, where they go for the winter. But he never really switches off.
“Writing for me isn’t a job, it’s a lifestyle. I can’t distinguish between the two.”