Out & About September 2017

ALL IN THE MIND

Journalist-cum-crime author Jon Stock’s latest offering is a psychological thriller, written under the pseudonym JS Monroe. HELEN SHEEHAN and LISSA GIBBINS met up with him in Great Bedwyn, where he lives, to talk about his mindgames spine-chiller Find Me

N ow a full-time author, former journalist and Great Bedwyn resident Jon Stock has had an impressive career as the editor of the Weekend section of the Daily Telegraph , also as foreign correspondent for the same paper and a columnist for The Week magazine in India. He has written seven books, five of them spy thrillers. His Daniel Marchant Trilogy has been optioned by Warner Brothers, with continued interest from director McG ( Terminator 4 and Charlie’s Angels ). By his own admission, the writing of a book,

although challenging in itself, is only half the battle. Finding an agent, and a suitable publisher, are the next Herculean hurdles. Even then, with all your ducks in a row, you can’t be sure your book will sell. Happily for Jon, his thrillers have been well received and sales figures are impressive. With Find Me coming out in paperback on September 7, all the signs are positive for another winner. Find Me , published by Head of Zeus, came out in hardback in February this year. It ranked number one in the Kobo chart, number

14 in the Kindle chart and, in its first month, sold more than 10,000 downloads in the UK alone. Writing as JS Monroe, Find Me is a little different from standard thriller fare. While it is indeed a gripping story, it harbours dark and disturbing twists in its plot, which place it firmly in the psychological thriller genre, alongside Gone Girl and Girl on a Train . The first and possibly most obvious question to ask Jon is, why the pseudonym?

Picture: Hilary Stock

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