Gavin Stone
The Burning Spy and The Unforgiven Spy
Update: 4/19/2024—It was my pleasure to interview author Gavin Stone on his YouTube channel for the release of his new book, THE BURNING SPY. This 15-minute interview is quick and gets right down to it. Enjoy this edition of The Writer’s Dossier: Five Quick Author Questions.
DOSSIER: When The Dossier guy finished polygraph techniques training, he might have thought it would be funny to come home and start plying his new trade around the house like a little Jedi jackass. The concept was met with a high degree of skepticism. Have you ever pulled any of the Jedi mind trickery with the family? How does that go over with the loved ones?
STONE: When it comes to NLP, Mind control and hypnosis, I have some great fun. I’ve used it on multiple occasions with my wife and there’s no better place to test it than on the family or with friends at an event. On one occasion I hypnotized a friend at a party just before the buffet opened and told him his feet were stuck to the floor and the more he tries to pull away, the more stuck they will feel. We all laughed from the buffet bar as we piled our plates up and watched him desperately struggle to get up as all the food was disappearing! Of course we piled a plate up for him and kept it aside so he didn’t miss out but we had a lot of fun. He’d skipped breakfast and was starving. It’s not all laughs though. I’ve also used it to get my wife over her fear of flying. So there is some positive to come out of what I do.
DOSSIER: You’re ranked #28 in the world as a body language expert, and you wrote HOW TO TELL IF SOMEONE IS LYING to share some of the techniques with others. Are there usually one or two things you immediately look for when you’re in assessment mode, or is it rather subjective to the specific individual that guides your evaluation?
This is a Dossier Bonus Question, and the answer is only available on Jeff Clark’s Course of Action Podcast. While you’re there, consider subscribing and start listening to some seriously interesting interviews.
DOSSIER: Your novel, THE UNFORGIVEN SPY has been called, “Gripping, pulse-pounding, and a clever thriller.” It’s also been praised for showing the intricacies of espionage tradecraft. You obviously didn’t use any classified information from your days as a covert operative for the British government, but how far did you wander from actual cases you were familiar with? Or did you just totally make up new stories with no connection to the past?
STONE: The origin of the novel differs somewhat from the final product. I started out to write a more biographical style book but when I was finished with the first draft, I read it back and realized I was going to create a lot of potential trouble. I decided to water it down and make a few changes so that it would get so many people into trouble. The only problem was that it had now become so boring, even I didn’t want to read it. I called a good friend of mine from MI6 and he suggested I write from experience but as fiction.
He had written many novel himself since leaving MI6 and had an impressive career as an author so I decided to follow his advice.
Originally, I was going to go down a more comedy style route and the working title of the first draft was “SPY AT HOME DAD”. It didn’t take long however before I shifted to writing form experience and it went form a light hearted comedy to a more serious style thriller.
As for the content, everything in the book is written from first hand experience. Not all in the same order or form the same events with the exception of the main protagonist has his daughter kidnapped, and I’m grateful to say I’ve never had that happen. That was the only element that was pure fiction. Everything else is based on experiences throughout my working life.
DOSSIER: When and where do you write, and what kind of environment do you prefer? (Absolute silence/music playing/dark corner of the pub with headphones on?) Are you working on a follow-up novel to THE UNFORGIVEN SPY?
STONE: I’d love to say I have a secret log cabin writing retreat in the mountains where I disappear to do my best writing, the sad reality however, is that I have to do it wherever and whenever I get the chance. Some people can sit at a laptop and type out a story, I prefer to be chilled out on the bed, deciding what and how I want to write, then go and type it up. So I kind of write each chapter in my head first then type it up. I don’t plit the whole book, I do have a chapter in my head before I hit a single key though. Overall, I generally know how the whole book is going to go but I do like to surprise myself along the way. The occasional curve ball can be a little fun.
DOSSIER: There was an American TV show called Lie To Me where actor Tim Roth was able to catch people in lies through some of the most inconceivable ways imaginable. Micro-expressions were huge. Much of the show tried to root itself in foundational techniques, but what do you say to someone who walks into a room and claims to be able to tell if a complete stranger is lying based on a mouth gesture or an eye twitch?
STONE: Years of experience means I know that it simply cannot be done. I’ve trained people in techniques to spot microexpressions and it’s true, they can tell you a lot however, a single twitch can’t tell you if a person is lying or not. I tend to look for a cluster of ‘tells’ usually 3 or more at a time in order to form an analysis of whether a person is being deceptive or not. A single ‘tell’ could easily be a misread but a combination of several revealing ‘tells’ will give you a higher percentage chance of spotting deceit in real time. Unless it’s a politician, in that case just assume it’s all lies!
DOSSIER: Did you pursue your education in psychology to specifically get into the human intelligence field, or was it the other way around? If you had to put a percentage on it and, because this is The Dossier you’re compelled to, where would you put the value of higher education versus field training in the realm of what’s more useful to becoming a good human credibility assessment specialist?
STONE: Experience trumps education every time! I know I’m going to upset a few people with that statement but it’s true, think of it like this; Imagine you have to take a challenging international long haul flight. Would you rather have a pilot who’s flown twenty thousand successful flights without crashing, in a spectrum of weather conditions and circumstances but hasn’t got a pilot’s license, or a pilot who’s got a license and read a thousand books on flying but has never flown a plane?
Education will give you a knowledge of the industry but the learning starts when you’re on the job! There is no better training in the world than working in the field of the industry you want to work in.
That being said, the knowledge I gained when studying psychology has been
exceptionally valuable to me and I thoroughly enjoyed learning about human behavior and what makes people tick. It’s always fascinated me and still does to this day.
I would have probably still ended up working in intelligence with or without studying psychology but I definitely believe it helped. The truth is, when it comes down to it, if the IC has a use for you, they’ll hire you however, the qualifications will always certainly help.
Website: Author Page | Amazon author page