Matthew Quirk
Inside Threat & The Night Agent
DOSSIER: Whose idea was it for you to re-write the plot in HOUR OF THE ASSASSIN? Did you want to assassinate them or at least have your character Nick Averose do the job?
QUIRK: Ha, no. As tough as it is to do a major rewrite, it’s better to find out the book needs reworking before it’s published. And after I took that book apart, it came back together beautifully and ended up being a real bullet of a plot, one of my leanest and meanest, I think. Big revisions on deadline are always stressful, but as long as the finished product is good, I’m happy. I wish it weren’t the case, but I seem to do my best work under the gun.
DOSSIER: What one thing about covering private military contractors sticks out from your time writing for The Atlantic?
QUIRK: It was striking how they can be as powerful as nations in certain parts of the world, if not more so, and how everything has a price. A coup in a very large African country might set you back $100 million, while rescuing an executive who’s been taken hostage runs low six figures.
DOSSIER: When and where do you write, and what kind of environment do you prefer? (Music/silence/doomsday bunker?)
QUIRK: My former office is now the nursery and I’ve moved to the garage since we had our first child. I really like being out of the house and away from distractions (and snacks). I go for silence when writing, and have a pretty bombproof set of earplug/noise-cancelling headphone/white noise options so I can write and focus even if someone is having a hoedown in the backyard.
DOSSIER: You were skeptical about THE NIGHT AGENT actually ending up on film before it came out as one of Netflix’s biggest shows. What other things are you skeptical about?
QUIRK: Anything I see in a YouTube ad. Some very sketchy info on there. Regarding the The Night Agent, I just never get my hopes up that any show or film will get made because it’s so hard to get anything across the finish line. But with that adaptation, I had great fortune in connecting with some incredibly talented, hard-working people who put together one hell of a show.
DOSSIER: The emergency doomsday bunker doors from INSIDE THREAT retract rather than swing like the ones in your house, right? Why is that?
QUIRK: For my house I went with the doors from Get Smart: eight layers deep, ending with a phone booth secret entrance. The doors at Raven Rock—the real-life bunker featured in the book—swing but in the book I had them retract to create more opportunities for sabotage and drama as they try to pry them open.
Website: matthewquirk.com
Jeff Circle 