Counter-terrorism expert Sid Allen is back in Dead Letters, the latest thriller from journalist-turned-author MICHAEL BRISSENDEN. Good Reading asked the author what books have inspired him the most, and what stories from his 30-year career he’s most proud of.

What are you reading now, and why?
Blacktop Wasteland by S A Cosby. Brilliant crime thriller from a black American deep south perspective. Beautifully constructed, great sense of place and culture with a gripping story.

What are some of your favourite childhood books?
• The Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkien
• The Lord God Made Them All by James Herriot
• Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger
• Survive the Savage Sea by Dougal Robertson

What books have made you laugh?
• Anything by Spike Milligan or Billy Connolly
• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
• Holidays in Hell by P J O’Rourke

What books have gotten under your skin?
Hard to name them all but here’s a few:
• Money by Martin Amis
• Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard
• The Power of the Dog by Don Winslow
• The North Water by Ian McGuire
• Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
• The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan
• Cloudstreet by Tim Winton
• The Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
• Kaffir Boy by Mark Mattabane
• One Crowded Hour by Tim Bowden
• The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
• The Kelly Gang by Peter Carey

Dead Letters swaps the war on terror for a war on corrupt politicians, from the streets of Sydney all the way to ‘the top’ in Canberra. What inspired you look at homegrown thrills?
In some ways Dead Letters is an extension of the criminal themes of The List. I was interested in writing something about the convergence of criminal groups that we are seeing around the world. I was interested in exploring how this might intersect with politics and how an association formed at the start of a political career might be impossible to shake. I was also keen to write about the Sydney I knew in the 1990s and how it’s changed.

Dead Letters also introduces us to Zephyr Wilde, a tenacious, hard-boiled journalist. How did your experience as a journalist inspire her character?
Her interaction with politics and police, her struggles with the changing media environment, her frustrations with much of the media industry and with the insider culture of politics as well as her determination to pursue a story were all inspired by my experiences. She is young but tenacious, and in the thick of a career that is vital to the functioning of society. Thanks to the pressure of the new digital media environment and the collapse of the traditional media model it has become a precarious profession.

In your 30-year career, what stories are you most proud to have worked on?
There are many highlights but the moments that stand out most are probably those from my time as a correspondent. Reporting from Moscow during the turbulent transition from communism to the first free elections under Boris Yeltsin. The vicious and violent military campaign in Chechnya in 1995. My tours during the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia – particularly in the weeks after the Srebrenica massacre. The wars and conflicts in the Middle East. And of course my time spent in the United States during the first term of the historic Obama presidency.

If given the opportunity to host a dinner party and invite six people, authors or not – alive or deceased – who would they be?
Barack Obama, Salman Rushdie, Nelson Mandela, Joni Mitchell, John Coltrane and Golda Meir.

Dead Letters by Michael Brissenden is published by Hachette.