What is the title of your latest release?
The new book is called MRS SPY – and the title says it all, I think!
What the elevator pitch?
A widowed MI5 worker delves deep into the nation’s secrets to solve a personal injustice. Slow Horses meets The Ipcress File. And according to one reviewer, it’s “The Thursday Murder Club for spies.”
How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
Given the timeline is 1965, I felt there was no other choice than London – The Beatles, Carnaby Street, all that fashion and music and the huge vibe of being the IT place. I’m a huge fan of that era, and so to write it was a dream. It’s also the year and the place I was born, which made it doubly irresistible.
What are the three words that describe your main character?
Maggie Flynn is determined, funny, and slightly weary (that’s two, but can I have it?)
What side character stole your attention most from the main character?
Undoubtedly, that’s Frank Tanner, Maggie’s partner in their surveillance team; he’s a should-be-retired police officer, battling an aging body but has always got Maggie’s back. Originally, I wrote him as a tiny bit part, but Frank had other ideas, and he elbowed his way onto the page and refused to leave. His blunt observations on life are…let’s say…interesting.
What’s something your learned while writing this book?
That spy writing is hard but fun, and spies live nothing like James Bond. They need to eat a decent meal rather than inhale martinis.
Do you edit your draft or wait until you are totally done?
At each start to the day, I always edit the previous day’s writing, and then leave a good two weeks to a month for what I call a “good scrub” at the end, to sort out all the notes I’ve left myself in the text, things like “check that café was open in 1965”, or “what number bus ran that route?”
What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
Crisps, or what you call chips. And a good flat white. Can’t live without either.
Describe your writing space/office.
In the mornings, I like to go out to a coffee shop and write. Where I live in the Cotswolds, we have plenty to choose from, but my favorite is an artisan café that welcomes laptop workers and takes their coffee very seriously. I go with my dog, a Miniature Schnauzer called Basil, and he cracks the whip if I’m slacking. If it gets a bit noisy with chatter, I plug in to monks singing a Gregorian chant on a loop and that helps me focus. In the afternoons, I tend to work in my living room, on the sofa. Basil supervises from his various dog beds.
Who is the author you admire?
Oh, so many. But I will always buy the latest William Boyd book, and wait with bated breath for the next Mick Herron, who writes the Slow Horses series. I also love Jane Austen for her superb characters, but I suspect that if she lived today, she’d be a top thriller writer.
Is there a book that changed your life?
An American children’s book called Harriet the Spy, which I read at about nine years old and was my constant companion. I wanted to be Harriet, who in turn wanted to be a spy and a writer. I was always writing my own book, sadly with the same plot as Harriet. But it really did sew the seed of one day holding that book in my hand. I was fifty-three when my first book was published, so the lesson is: never let go of that book, or your dreams. I still have a copy of Harriet on the shelf next to my bed.
Tell us about when you got ‘the call’?
I was rushing to go out, but quickly checked my emails beforehand, to find a message from my first editor saying she would ‘love’ to publish my first book. I think I dropped my phone and screamed so loud my husband thought I’d injured myself! I’ve since read that email many, many times over.
What’s your favorite genre to read?
Without a doubt, spy and crime novels. I like fast and pacy, though with dark, wry humour (as in Slow Horses), and good characters. I’ve just returned from a weekend crime book festival and it was like being bathed in champagne bubbles with people talking wall-to-wall crime – absolute bliss.
What’s your favorite movie?
Tricky one – it’s a close-run thing between Pride and Prejudice and Apollo 13, which we watch as a family, and never ceases to bring me out in a sweat, even though history (and multiple viewings) tells me what happened.
What is your favorite season?
I’m definitely an Autumn-Winter person – I love cold and crisp walks with the dog, cozying up by the fire and making soup. I really should live in the Arctic.
How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
I’m not a big birthday person or a party-goer, but this year I hit the big 6-0, and I had a wonderful meal with my husband, two sons and daughter-in-law, plus another meal with very good friends, fellow writers and those from my previous days as a midwife. Good friends and chat is perfect for me.
What’s a recent tv/show/movie/book/podcast that you recommend?
I really enjoyed a recent Netflix TV crime show called Department Q, set in Edinburgh, which I binged and then regretted watching it so quickly. I also subscribe to a weekly podcast called The Rest is Classified, where an American writer and a British journalist dissect and discuss old and new spy stories. I listen to that while I’m cooking. It’s funny, revealing, sometimes shocking and I learn an awful lot.
What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
Definitely Italian – I’ve been a vegetarian for thirty-five years and it’s a joy to have a menu with so many choices. A good lasagne is heaven on a plate.
What do you do when you have free time?
I like to knit what my children call “weird things” – there are several knitted placentas out there to my credit (good for teaching ante-natal classes), I walk with friends and dogs, and I puff my way through the gym. Plus, reading, of course.
What can readers expect from you next?
Fortunately, Maggie gets to ride again, and I get to write it! I’m currently a good way through the sequel to Mrs Spy, set in 1968, but not all based in London. Maggie takes a peek behind the iron curtain!
MRS SPY by M J Robotham
An evocative and exhilarating ride through 60s London, described as “The Thursday Murder Club for spies”
Get ready for a pulse-pounding, laugh-out-loud ride through 1960s London as Maggie Flynn, unexpected MI5 operative and single mum, unravels the intelligence agency’s most treacherous secrets.
***
Maggie Flynn isn’t your typical 1960s mum.
She’s a spy, an unsuspecting operative for MI5, stalking London’s streets in myriad disguises.
Widowed and balancing her clandestine career with raising a Beatles-mad teenage daughter, Maggie finds comfort and purpose in her profession – providing a connection to her late husband, whose own covert past only surfaced after his death.
But Maggie’s world spins out of control when a chance encounter with a mysterious Russian agent triggers a chilling revelation: he knew her husband. And what’s worse, the agent suspects someone on home soil betrayed him.
As Maggie searches for answers, she’ll question everyone – and everything – she thought she could trust. In the murky and perilous world of espionage, can she outsmart those determined to keep her silenced?
Mystery | Action | Women’s Fiction [Bloomsbury USA, On Sale: June 3, 2025, Hardcover / e-Book , ISBN: 9781035914234 / eISBN: 9781035901166]
Buy MRS SPY: Amazon.com | Kindle | BN.com | Apple Books | Kobo | Google Play | Powell’s Books | Books-A-Million | Indie BookShops | Ripped Bodice | Walmart.com | Target.com | Amazon CA | Amazon UK | Amazon DE | Amazon FR
About M J Robotham
M J Robotham saw herself as an aspiring author from childhood, but was waylaid by journalism, birth, children and life. After twenty years as a midwife and a Creative Writing MA, she is a full-time author, writing historical fiction as Mandy Robotham. She lives in Gloucestershire with her partner.
No Comments
Comments are closed.