Tuesday, October 14, 2014

A Conversation with Novelist Adrian Churchward

Omnimystery News: Author Interview with Adrian Churchward
with Adrian Churchward

We are delighted to welcome novelist Adrian Churchward to Omnimystery News today.

Adrian's first book in The Puppet Meisters trilogy dealing with state abuse of power, Moscow Bound, was published earlier this year by SilverWood Books, and we recently had the opportunity to talk more about it with him.

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Omnimystery News: Moscow Bound is the first in a trilogy. Introduce us to the lead characters and how you see them developing over the series.

Adrian Churchward
Photo provided courtesy of
Adrian Churchward

Adrian Churchward: The main protagonists are Scott Mitchell and General Pravda. Scott is an English human rights lawyer based in Moscow. He crusades against injustices and abuses of power committed by the political elite (everywhere, not just in Russia), who pay lip service to transparency. As the story proceeds he learns to be more pragmatic.

General Pravda of Russian military intelligence is devoted to his Motherland, but realises that things must change in the way Russia treats its people, if it is to become a transparent society.

Scott will remain the principal character throughout the trilogy. I suspect that General Pravda will come and go.

OMN: Tell us something about Moscow Bound that isn't mentioned in the publisher's synopsis.

AC: The story is about the plight of those captured US GIs, classified as MIAs, in the Vietnam War who are believed to have become the "Moscow Bounds", when North Vietnam traded them with the Soviet Union in exchange for technical support.

OMN: How would you tweet a summary of the book?

AC: An edgy psychological thriller set in 2013 Moscow, uniting Cold War and contemporary events in Russia, the USA and Vietnam.

OMN: How much of your own personal or professional experience have you included in the series?

AC: I lived and worked (as a commercial lawyer) in the USSR/Russia for 14 years. Prior to that, I spent a year or so working in Los Angeles. During these periods I met, and sometimes befriended, all sorts of "colourful characters." Several of the characters in my book are composites of people I have met.

As far as my research shows, the details about the Soviet closed nuclear city, Arzamas/Sarov, and the "Butcher of Grozny" (though he was never posted to Arzamas) are correct; as is the general information about the missing US GIs and Operation Phoenix.

OMN: In addition to your personal knowledge, how do you go about researching the plot points of your stories?

AC: Internet research and consulting with experts and/or people with first-hand experience e.g. the information about the historical and continuing animosity between the KGB/FSB and the GRU (military intelligence).

The most challenging topic to research was the information about Arzamas/Sarov. There is much on the internet, but it's a question of trying to sort fact from fiction.

The most "exciting" (a better word would be "heart-breaking") was the discovery that the Soviets had taken the GIs in the first place and, as equally disturbing, the fact that successive US governments have apparently left it to families, charities and Veterans Associations to "bring the boys home". Many of their relatives feel abandoned by their government.

OMN: How true are you to the setting?

AC: The setting had to be Moscow — especially as it's a city of which I have/had intimate knowledge, both as to the principal characters and the plot.

I have tried to be true to the geography and local environment of Moscow, Suzdal and Arzamas. The only exceptions are that the Tutti Frutti bar on Pushkin Square is a fiction, as are the Monte Cristo club on Komosomolskaya Square, the Lenin's Tomb bar on Delegatskaya Street and the abandoned multi-storey car park behind the Renaissance Penta Hotel (now renamed Azimut Moscow Olympic hotel).

OMN: What is the best advice — and harshest criticism — you've received as an author? And what might you say to aspiring writers?

AC: Best advice = write, then rewrite …

I haven't received any "harsh" criticism, only constructive criticism. My editor advised me not to let my personal views (usually political rants against the establishment) invade my characters. Sound advice.

I believe I am a better writer, having taken the above advice.

My advice to aspiring writers is "never give up".

OMN: What kind of feedback have you received from readers?

AC: The feedback has been almost 100% positive and tremendously encouraging. Many people are now pressing for book 2 in the trilogy, as Moscow Bound has left the story on a cliff-hanger and these readers are desperate for a resolution.

I have been asked more than once if I was a spy. My friends and colleagues now call me James Bond — but at a height of 5'8" I find it hard to suspend my disbelief.

OMN: What's next for you?

AC: I am writing Book 2 in the trilogy, with an intended publishing date of October/November 2015, and I'm working on the storyline for Book 3. I hope to retire to a mobile home stationed on the DreamWorks' parking lot.

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Between 1984 and 1998 Adrian Churchward lived and worked in Moscow, Budapest and Prague as an East-West trade lawyer, representing British, American, and German corporations. During this period he became fluent in Russian, and proficient in translating Russian commercial and legal texts into English. He was one of the few Western lawyers working in the day-to-day arena of President Gorbachev's liberalization process of perestroika and glasnost, and which ultimately resulted in the collapse of communism and disintegration of the Soviet Union. In 1991, he witnessed the abortive coup against Gorbachev, and in 1993, he was again present in Moscow when Yeltsin ordered the shelling of the Russian parliament building, aka the "The Russian White House." He now lives in London, has two daughters, three grandsons and a cat that eats furniture.

For more information about the author, please visit his website at AdrianChurchward.com and his author page on Goodreads, or find him on Facebook and Twitter.

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Moscow Bound by Adrian Churchward

Moscow Bound
Adrian Churchward
The Puppet Meisters Trilogy

Ekaterina Romanova, the estranged wife of Russia's wealthiest oligarch Konstantin Gravchenko, asks Scott Mitchell, an idealistic young English human rights lawyer who is being intimidated by the authorities, to find the father she's never met. She believes he's been languishing for decades without trial in the Gulag system. Meanwhile, General Pravda of military intelligence, though an advocate of transparency, is determined to protect a covert operation that he's been running for years.

General Pravda hinders Ekaterina and Scott at every turn and lawyer and client are forced to go on the run for a murder they didn't commit. As they descend into the Hades that is the world of international realpolitik Scott is compelled to reconsider his own values, and Pravda's life's work disintegrates, when Scott uncovers a 50 year-old Cold War secret, which both the Russian and US governments are still trying to hide from the public domain.

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