The book & I

First novels, like first loves, are a rollercoaster of emotions combined with fumbling in the dark. I thought I was going to write a ripping yarn about a runaway Soviet destroyer and ended with a triangle of three lives trapped in a cold war. The book started as Storozhevoy, a name deemed impossible by agents and publishers, and metamorphosed into Troika. I still like its first incarnation -- if only because the same agent-for-hire who hated it went on to say the manuscript was "not only unpublishable, but unfixable." If anyone reading this is also brave enough to be pushing a first novel, stick to your guns.

... Troika was written at Queenswood and did not have an easy birth. There were many false alarms. Delivery was finally assured when I produced a fifth draft and the London publisher recruited Alistair Maclean as midwife. His generous quote got re-cycled for the next four thrillers, but I am always amused when I read it because after the opening "It is difficult not to heap superlatives..." I hear the critics adding a chorus of "but not impossible". Troika received the shortest bad review of any novel I've written: "I really tried to read this book but don't know why I bothered."

... It was a little more painful not to find a nod from a fellow writer in the acknowledgments page of Hunt for Red October.

Jacket Type

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Book Editions

American Edition, Methuen, New York, 1979

UK Edition, McDonald & Janes, London, 1979

Canadian Edition, McClelland & Stewart, Toronto, 1979

Paperback Edition, Berkely, USA, 1979

Paperback Edition, Futura, UK, 1979

Paperback Edition, Seal-Bantam, Canada, 1979

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Collector's Corner

For any passing Librarians, Collectors, and/or Interested Readers...

... If you would like information about the availability of any book or its various editions, please click here to link with the Whole Collection.

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