About Simon Gray
ABOUT SIMON GRAY
What to do if your boss is telling you that he does not want you to work for him any longer? Is it a failure or just on the contrary, a reason for joy (overall, you hated him)? Simon Gray’s answer to a bad boss was to write a thriller.
After losing his job, Simon had very strong feelings about his former employer: “I was crushed, my plans devastated. I considered what type of person could be so indifferent to another’s fate and how many people’s lives had been ruined by others’ blinkered self interest. Was it really him or had business made him that way? So I started writing.” In this way, he turned from an employee of a powerboat company into a writer. His adventure with literature started in 2008 with Blinkered, a thriller where one of the main characters is an owner of (what a surprise!) a powerboat business. Later Simon created Unquiet Mind, a sequel to Blinkered. Then Time Stops Ticking and Ready To Serve was published last year.
First inspirations
At the time of writing Blinkered apart from his negative experience of working in the motor boat industry Simon had already behind him some practice as a yacht master. A journey - on the sea and across different continents - was an inseparable part of his work and his life. No wonder that travelling is also one of the themes of his books. This experienced traveller takes his readers on a journey to the exciting places that he has visited, from the United States to the Caribbean, from Peru (with the Amazon jungle and the Inca villages in the Andes Mountains) to Trinidad, China and Hong Kong.
Through his books, Simon also takes his readers along for the ride across current affairs. The background of the events which Simon’s characters are involved in consists of the most burning phenomena on the political and social global scene: an Al Qaeda-like terrorist organisation and its global network, China’s emergence as a superpower, an under-age suicide in Gaza, the glamorous but bloodthirsty world of business.
Although Simon’s novels are classified as thrillers they inspire readers to deeper reflection. They are also a journey into the world of human feelings in search for answers to everyday questions. Ways of dealing with life’s challenges, a reflection on loneliness experienced even in the group of seemingly close people and the importance of friendship are amongst the more serious themes he tackles.
Simon’s novels are more complex than one could expect from thrillers and reflect the author’s multifaceted nature. A childhood in South Africa, Simon now lives in Arundel, West Sussex with is wife and children. He openly admits that his professional life has been “wobbly and bumpy” and that writing is much more to him than just another rung in his career’s ladder – it is the “paracetamol to the headache” of his past professional experiences.
Review for 'Ready to Serve'
"Ready to Serve is an excellent piece of escapism"
"The twists and turns of the plot are phenomenal"
"..one is quickly sucked into the breathtaking sequence of events"
