"Move Him to the Back Before He Puts Someone's Eye Out"

The Times has a chat with Julian Rathbone about the financial side of a writing career:

I receive a small income, about £200 a month, from two private pensions that matured four years ago when I was 65. I used my lump-sum entitlements to pay off the mortgage and build a final extension. I get a state pension of £48 a week... All my pension problems would be solved if they were to make a movie of my historical novel The Last English King. When it came out in l996, it was optioned for a film and is still under option. It is possible I could get more than £200,000.

You might be able to track down the 1999 American edition of The Last English King, a historical novel narrated by King Harald's ex-bodyguard, at a used bookstore, but in the meantime, two of his works have just been brought to the U.S. by intrepid distributors. Trafalgar Square brings us another novel, A Very English Agent, while Dufour Editions offers The Indispensable Julian Rathbone, an anthology that includes the complete novel Lying in State. And here is an essay he wrote for Eurozine in 1999 which starts off by discussing what's wrong with modern thrillers...