{"version":"1.0","type":"rich","provider_name":"Acast","provider_url":"https://acast.com","height":250,"width":700,"html":"<iframe src=\"https://embed.acast.com/$/6087d3aca4a81031ba098a59/6a3ec25289bd872840e33524?\" frameBorder=\"0\" width=\"700\" height=\"250\"></iframe>","title":"3 Books You Should Never Take on a Plane + C.J. Merritt on Octagon (SUMMER SPECIAL)","description":"<p>Recorded live at <strong>Capital Crime Book Festival</strong>, Philippa talks to <strong>C.J. Merritt</strong> about his whiplash international spy thriller <em>Octagon</em> — but first, a public service announcement: three brilliant books you should absolutely not read on an actual flight.</p><p><strong>3 Books You Should NOT Take on Holiday (If You're Flying)</strong></p><p><strong>Hostage</strong> – Clare Mackintosh</p><p>A flight attendant receives a note threatening her daughter's life mid-flight from London to Sydney. Gripping, claustrophobic, and definitely not in-flight reading.</p><p><strong>Drowning</strong> – T.J. Newman</p><p>A plane crashes into the Pacific, trapping passengers underwater on a sinking fuselage. Written by a former flight attendant who knows exactly how to make this terrifyingly real.</p><p><strong>Airframe</strong> – Michael Crichton</p><p>A catastrophic mid-air disaster sparks a tense investigation into what really went wrong. Brilliant, realistic, and best read firmly on the ground.</p><p><strong>Philippa talks to C.J. Merritt about Octagon</strong></p><p>A former MI6 officer and an ex-SAS soldier, both out in the cold, are pulled back in when a coded warning leads to a trail of danger across Europe. Described as a page-turning action thriller in the vein of <em>I Am Pilgrim</em>.</p><p>Chris and Philippa discuss:</p><ul><li>His dream holiday: New Zealand, or a few days alone on a writing retreat (a luxury when you have a small child)</li><li>Travelling solo through Central Asia, Africa, and the Middle East in his twenties — and the cardigan with zip pockets built for smuggling books through customs</li><li>His nightmare holiday: a 25-mile jungle trek through 35°C heat in Central Africa, hired porters who got drunk on the money he paid them, and arriving to find the gorillas they'd come to see had all died of Ebola a year earlier</li><li>Why he wanted to write a spy thriller with a huge geographic canvas after several more localised books</li><li>Writing 500–1,000 words a day in a café, fuelled by multiple coffees, and losing track of time during action sequences</li><li>The two-book deal already underway, plus a slower, more psychological spy thriller drawing on his past life as a psychologist</li><li>Why the title <em>Octagon</em> came early and never changed</li></ul><p><strong>Ice cream order:</strong> Salted caramel, pistachio, and chocolate cookie dough — in a dish, with a cone on the side just in case.</p><p><strong>Get in touch</strong></p><p>Quick Book Reviews Facebook Group | Instagram | Email: <a href=\"mailto:quickbookreviews@outlook.com\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">quickbookreviews@outlook.com</a></p><p><em>Quick Book Reviews: author interviews and book reviews with no spoilers.</em></p>","author_name":"Philippa Hall"}