Close Quarters

AUTHOR’S NOTE

This book very nearly didn’t happen. I was halfway through completion of the manuscript when the news broke about the shooting down over eastern Ukraine of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur on July 17, 2014.

I tend to use a flavour of current events where I can, and had chosen the Ukraine in 2013 when I began writing because it offered a plausible backdrop on which to hang the story. What I hadn’t reckoned on was this terrible tragedy taking place in the same location, and for several days I felt reluctant to continue with it.

However, the timeline of Close Quarters was set several months earlier than July, so in the end I decided to continue with the project, since there would be no reference to it in the book, nor would I have had to deliberately ignore it, which would have been unjust for the 298 victims.

At the time of writing, the perpetrators of this act remain unproven.