Kevin Doherty grew up in Northern Ireland, graduated from Queen’s University Belfast, and lives in England, near Windsor Castle, with his wife Roz. His professional background is advertising and marketing. He has worked for a number of U.K. and international companies and has advised business and government agencies in Britain and Europe. He now writes full time. The Leonardo Gulag is his fourth novel.
BOOKS:
Patriots (2015)
Villa Normandie (2015)
Charlie’s War (2016)
The Leonardo Gulag (2020)
Your biggest literary influences:
John le Carré, Robert Harris, Sebastian Faulks, Robert Moss, Martin Cruz Smith, Irène Némirovsky, Anatoli Rybakov, Stephen King and Guy de Maupassant.
Last book read:
Munich by Robert Harris
The book that changed your life:
Leonardo da Vinci: One Hundred Drawings from the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen, by Martin Clayton, published by The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace.
This book was produced to accompany an exhibition held at The Queen’s Gallery in 1996–1997, and was generously given to me by a friend who knew I was thinking about writing a novel that somehow involved Leonardo’s work. This had been sparked by a visit to the Château du Clos Lucé in the French city of Amboise, where Leonardo spent his last years. As my thinking and planning progressed, there were many other books on Leonardo that informed my research – but Martin Clayton’s masterly work with its superb illustrations remained the cornerstone.
Your favorite literary character:
I think of George Smiley in John le Carré’s novels and Matthew Shardlake in C. J. Sansom’s novels set in 16th-century England. These are strong characters who are flawed or damaged in some way. But the question asks for my favourite character. That has to be Don Camillo the priest, in The Little World of Don Camillo novels by Giovanni Guareschi. Camillo is a man of simple faith – but as cunning as a fox and not above throwing a good left hook when necessary.
Currently working on:
Hôtel Picardie, a Second World War novel set in Nazi-occupied France. Its context is the tension between the French Resistance and ordinary citizens who are just trying to survive. Max Palissier, owner of the eponymous Hôtel Picardie, walks a fine line between survival and collaboration – and he has secrets of his own. The precarious balance of his world is threatened when an assassination team is sent by the Resistance to his town and kills two German soldiers. Hôtel Picardie will be a companion piece to Villa Normandie.
Words to live by:
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
- Hamlet, by William Shakespeare; Act I, Scene III
Advice for aspiring authors:
Sit. Write. Don’t get up until you’ve written.
