The Informationist

"When I was choosing my five books, I wanted to go for a mixture of different thrillers that have inspired me. My first three choices inspired me earlier on in my career, whereas the next two are stories that impressed me more recently. They are also both illustrative of certain trends that I see coming through in thrillers. The Informationist is a great example of turning a character on its head. We always think of the heroine as being somebody who needs to be rescued, and often female characters aren’t the heroes of the book. But in this book it is completely different. It is really a book about a female James Bond. Absolutely. She is one of the most interesting female characters I have read in a long time. What also made this book interesting is that it is set in Africa , and the author grew up in Africa. I got the sense that everything she was writing about – from the African landscape to the various dangers there – had a ring of authenticity. You don’t generally come across thrillers set in Africa unless you are talking about South African authors ."