Rob Sinclair - Gripping Thrillers Filled With Suspense and Twists

Rob is the author of the critically acclaimed and bestselling Enemy series and James Ryker series of espionage thrillers. His books have sold over half a million copies to date with many reviewers and readers having likened Rob's work to authors at the very top of the genre, including Lee Child and Vince Flynn. As our Author of the Day, Sinclair tells us all about Dance with the Enemy, the first book in his Enemy series.

Please give us a short introduction to what Dance with the Enemy is about.

Dance with the Enemy is an action-packed thriller and the first of three books in the Enemy series featuring Carl Logan, who I like to describe as a cross between Jack Reacher and Jason Bourne. 

Tell us more about Carl Logan.  What makes him tick?

Logan is in one respect a complex character. He’s got a very dark past, and at the start of Dance with the Enemy the book starts with him in a very dark place, suffering from PTSD following his near death at the hands of a mad-man. As you can imagine, therefore, there’s a hell of a lot going on in his head that even he’d have a hard time explaining, but really when you strip back the layers, he’s motivated by some very clear objectives; largely revenge, and punishing people he considers to be ‘bad’!

Readers say this is a fast-paced thriller. How did you manage to keep the pace throughout?

I’ve always enjoyed reading thrillers like this myself, so the process of writing a fast-paced thriller kind of came naturally to me really. A few things I always look out for; i) making sure every character, and every chapter has conflict in it. ii) keeping chapters, in general, short. iii) as much as I can I end chapters with big hooks to make sure readers keep on reading!

Your work has been likened to that of Lee Child and Vince Flynn. Who are some of your favorite authors and why?

Certainly those two are amongst my favourite authors and it’s hugely flattering to be likened to them. I don’t set out to be just like them, but anyone in this genre who gets plaudits gets compared to them automatically because their books are so good and so popular. 

There are countless other big-name thriller writers who I like, but as a kid my favourite writer was Terry Pratchett, and I still love his work now even though it’s very different to anything I’ve ever written.

Did you always want to be a writer? What inspired your debut?

Not at all! I’d never written fiction at all until I was in my late twenties, and it remains very difficult to explain why one day I decided to give it a go. What inspired my debut? I just was getting a bit sick of the books I was reading, and I said to myself, how hard can it be?!

It turns out it’s very hard! Not just to write a book, but to edit it, publish it, market it etc etc etc. It was a long journey to get that first book out but absolutely worth it. When I first set out with Dance with the Enemy, my simple aim was to write a book that I would like to read myself!

Besides writing, what other secret skills do you have?

I can irritate my boys almost instantaneously.

I like to think I’m a decent handyman around the house (not sure my wife agrees)

I’m also not too bad a pool/snooker player from too much time in the pub in my earlier years!

What is the hardest thing about being a writer?

Getting the motivation to start a new book. Day one is always daunting. Week one is in fact. And working at home there are so many distractions, it can be hard to keep my head down, but I’ve now written twelve books so I’m obviously getting over those problems ok!

Dance with the Enemy is the first book in the Enemy series.  How do the other books tie in with this one? Can they be read as standalones?

I’d say they can be read standalone, but I’m not sure I’d recommend that. There’s a larger story arc over the three books and reading them in order you really get to get under Logan’s skin and see how he changes as a person, grows and overcomes his problems. 

The book contains a lot of twists and turns. Did you plan them all out before you started writing, or did some of them just "happen" along the way?

95% of them happened along the way! I still start a book basically with one or two big ideas and then fill it out as I go along, and that was no different for Dance with the Enemy. I knew early on how it would finish, but there was a lot of fun in getting it to that point, which largely came to me as my fingers were typing. I really can’t explain how that happens but I’m glad to say it still does!

Your books deal with secretive topics--covert spy agencies,  classified technologies. How do you make it feel authentic?

I try not to overthink it. My books are more about action and thrills than politics or the inner workings of any particular organisation, so I just add in details on agencies and technologies and the like as and when I feel it’s necessary. I also invented my own covert agency, the JIA, for the very purpose that I didn’t want the reader to get bogged down in questioning whether the FBI, the CIA or MI6 or whoever really do things how I’ve written it. With the JIA it happens how I say. End of!

Do you consider yourself a disciplined writer? Do you have a schedule that you stick to, or is it more in the moment?

I think it’s really key for me to be disciplined otherwise I’d just find too many other things to do instead. I like to set myself deadlines in advance so I know when I want a first draft ready, when I want the edited draft ready, when I want final version ready, publication date etc. Without those deadlines I’d slip. In drafting mode I then aim for 4,000 words, 4 days a week normally. 

What did you have the most fun with when writing this book?

Creating Carl Logan. I wrote three books with Logan, and so far five with his subsequent alter ego James Ryker. Eight books down and there’s plenty of life in him yet, so I must be having fun with him still!

Can you give our readers a sneak peek into what's coming from you next?

It’s going to be a busy year! I have the sequel to last year’s Sleeper 13 coming in March (Fugitive 13), which is a new thriller series away from Logan/Ryker, but of much the same ilk. I’m hoping James Ryker book 5 will be released over the summer, and then in the autumn/winter I’m planning something a little different; a brand new crime thriller detective series which I’ll be making a formal announcement on soon I hope!

Where can our readers get a copy of Dance with the Enemy?

In ebook it’s exclusive to Amazon. Audio is also available, and paperback can be found on most online book stores.