Featured Interview With Mike Rickett
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was brought up in a village in mid-Wales in the west of the UK. I am divorced and live in Liverpool in the UK. I have a daughter who lives in Toronto, Canada and a son who lives in Tallinn, Estonia. I am a a career journalist having worked for the London Daily Mail, Reuters, the international news agency and latterly the Liverpool Daily Post on Merseyside in the UK. In a long and varied career, I have worked as a crime reporter, feature writer, business editor and latterly, a senior sub-editor. I have also worked as a PR executive for a major bank and a multi- national electronics company.
My qualifications include a BA (Hons) English, from the University of Liverpool; a BA (Hons) Fine Art and an MA in Creative Practice both from Liverpool Hope University.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I have been writing all my life really. English has always been my strongest subject which my school recognised and encouraged and entered me for a national essay writing competition when I was eight. I w3on it outright and won a major award both for myself and my school.
I have been a journalist all my life but it was not until fairly recently that I began my first novel. I never really had the time before!
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I loved Ruth Ware’s ‘The Woman in Cabin 10’ and the Cormoran Strike detective stories by Robert Galbraith (aka J K Rowling). Other recent fiction I have enjoyed was ‘Day of the Dead’ by Nikki French and ‘The Stone Circle’ by Elly Griffiths. Classically, Dracula is a story everyone has heard of but few have read. It’s a great story and puts the films to shame.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
The Poseidon Files follows on from my my first work of fiction, ‘Naomi’ a 5,000 word ghost story which introduced the central character of Naomi Richards to readers. She is the key in ‘The Poseidon Files’ which was inspired by a conspiracy theory I heard about focusing on an installation called HAARP in Alaska. Many scientists suspected that the US military were experimenting with weaponising the weather. I decided to create two fictional whistle-blowing scientists who escape Alaska, travel to Toronto and then on to the UK where they plan to pass on secret files to the British media.
Two women become involved when the memory stick containing the files that show how the weather is being weaponised is accidentally passed to Naomi who is an artist and psychic. She was inspired by my grandmother who was something of a psychic and mystic. Naomi’s abilities introduce a supernatural element to the story.
The second central character is a Canadian private eye who has been hired by the FBI to find the files. She becomes a close friend of Naomi’s and together they become targets for criminal gangs intent on finding the files and selling them to the highest bidder.
But it all backfires and two women find themselves in the centre of intrigue and menace. The Streets of Liverpool and the picturesque village of Llanberis in Snowdonia, as well as the mountain itself, also play an atmospheric part in a tale of murder and deceit.
Are people who they seem? Who can you trust in a world of shadows?
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