New Genre, Old Title: Charles Cumming on his Typhoon
When people discover that my new novel is called Typhoon, they usually ask one of two questions: "Is it about a storm which decimates south-east Asia?" and "Didn’t Joseph Conrad write a book with that title?"
The first question is easy to answer. Typhoon isn’t about the weather. It’s about a secret CIA plot – codenamed TYPHOON – to destabilise China on the eve of the Beijing Olympics. Still, I’ve begun to wonder whether I should have created an entirely new sub-genre: the ‘meteorological thriller’. ‘Sandstorm’, ‘Hurricane’, ‘Blizzard’ and ‘Hail’ could have topped the bestseller lists for years, making me my fortune…
As far as Conrad is concerned, he did, of course, write a novel called Typhoon but I am not paying homage to him. My Typhoon was originally entitled Run, the cryptonym of a deep cover MI6 officer in Hong Kong named Joe Lennox, who is the hero of the story. However, about six months ago, my literary agent discovered that the American thriller writer Jeff Abbott was publishing a novel called Run in the summer of 2008. Given that Jeff had enjoyed huge success in the UK with Fear and Panic, we figured it would be sensible to get out of his way.
Typhoon was by far the most challenging of the four books I have written. China is a massive subject and, in order to do it justice, I needed to spend time in Hong Kong and Shanghai – where the bulk of the action takes place – and to read what felt like an entire library of books and articles about China. I have tried to build a compelling story around some of the major issues of the day: the Chinese economic boom, human rights abuses in Xinjiang and Tibet, and, of course, the Olympic Games, which are now just a few short months away.
Typhoon is a spy story and a love story, a thriller which will transport you to Hong Kong in 1997, on the eve of the handover, and to the glamour and excitement of modern day Shanghai.
Typhoon will be published by Penguin
