Will people on the Right begin questioning what the authors in my genre do?

American crime novelist Jeffery Deaver is back with a new Colter Shaw thriller, South of Nowhere. He tells ELLA WALKER about tackling tricky topics and Trump

- ELLA WALKER

JEFFERY Deaver's third Colter Shaw novel, The Final Twist, saw a Californian corporate executive trying to get his business - not a human, an actual business - elected to US Congress. “It’s not likely, it probably wouldn’t happen, and yet, I have to say I was there first, with all respect to Mr Musk and President Trump,” says the hit crime author dryly. “It’s a window into the craziness that's going on in America.”

The prolific 75-year-old, a former journalist turned novelist, calls the current political situation “abysmal”. “We're in a very, very difficult and frightening place in America,” he says blankly. He's particularly concerned about the “dampening effect of political speech” on publishing.

“I’m an outspoken critic, and I think we have a moral duty to speak the truth. I’m an attorney as well, and many of the things [Trump]’s doing aren’t just wrong, they're illegal, he can’t do that. He’s stepping over the bounds,” he says passionately, flagging the “inexcusable” recent deportation - according to advocacy groups and lawyers - of three young children, including one with cancer, all US citizens, to Honduras in April.

“If someone is born here, they have birthright citizenship. It’s in the Constitution. There's no debate, and yet he’s challenging it. We have the obligation, I feel, to say, ‘No, that’s wrong. You can’t do it.”

He doesn’t hesitate to share his views, but “will I be audited by our government's internal revenue service? Maybe. Will that affect our writing? Could be,” he muses. “I am concerned about the integrity of the publishing world, and will people on the Right begin questioning what the authors in my genre and other genres do?”