SHE QUIT her career as a high-flyer in the fast lane of investment banking to wield the pen when she got an idea for a white collar crime that would be almost impossible to detect. Instead of committing the crime, she decided to write about it. Nest of Vipers was the result.

It was a sell-out success and was published in 30 different countries. She had three adventurous years in Peru, where she was caught in a shootout. She went on to write three more thrillers about intrigues in high places.

In a classic case of voluntary simplicity, she then opted to live in a leafy lane of Dubai to bring up her three children, away from the yob culture of London.

But life aped fiction when she and her husband were kidnapped and held captive by the Iranian Navy while they were in what she claims was international waters.

Rescued after high-profile British government intervention, she chose to complete the children’s fantasy-adventure, Sea Djinn, she had started before the traumatic experience.

The exacting creative process helped her come out of her shell. It had a cathartic effect on her. Now, she is basking in the glow of her success.

Born in Scotland, brought up in Wales, Linda read Politics and Philosophy at Oxford University. It was her intimate experience and knowledge of the world of investment banking in New York, London, Paris, Milan and Eastern Europe that inspired her first novel, Nest of Vipers.

“Inside the Trading in the Foreign Exchange Market, I imagined what would be a huge crime if somebody could pull it off, that could be almost invisible and incredibly difficult to detect.” says Linda.

“This was in the era of semi fixed currencies — 1991. If you were a foreign exchange trader and you were tipped off in advance that all the central banks were going to intervene, one could make tens and thousands of dollars.”

Linda spent about half an hour thinking of the idea. “I didn’t want to make any money out of it, but there might be somebody out there doing just this. That was my starting point,” says Linda.

“And then I thought, how would you investigate it? In order to prove it, you need to have someone working alongside the suspect — to monitor what they did, to find out if they were getting any advance information. That created the central character of my book.

So I had the character and I had the plot. And so I got cracking.”

Nest of Vipers, that depicted the underbelly of the vicious world of finance, did very well and the option of the film rights have been sold to Touchstone and MGM. “They haven’t yet made it into a film, but they could,” says Linda.

She admits she had no specialised background in writing, but always loved to write and decided to follow her dream and her first love.

“Yes, it was an enormous risk throwing away a highly paid career based on nothing more than speculation,” admits Linda. “But it was sanity-saving. I worked in investment banking in highly stressful areas. I think testing yourself in the “rat race” can be appealing at a certain stage in your life. I did it for seven years from age 22. There were hardly any women employees then. It was quite tough with very long working hours. And that was enough for me. And sometimes you have to take those risks.”

Linda admits the book involved a lot of research: “I had to research the world of the Mafia, the role Intelligence Services, the inner workings of the Bank of England —all this was quite a challenge.”

Nudged by the success of the first book, Linda went on to write Wilderness of Mirrors, a novel about speculations over diamond mining in Vietnam.

Then she got married and moved to Peru and wrote Into the Fire — a book about fraud in the Derivatives Market with Peru as the backdrop.

Linda’s fourth tome, Something Wild harks back to the heroine of her first book. “Besides being a financial thriller, it’s a great love story,” says Linda.

Her fifth work, Final Settlement, is a suspense and not a financial thriller about a woman who falls in love with the wrong man.

“I didn’t want to write a chic-lit or something where a woman is just a love interest,” says Linda, elucidating about her strong female characters and her panache for intrigue.

Her husband’s work brought Linda to Dubai. “I found it to be an extremely nice place to bring up children — much more civilised in many ways than London’s become. Also we wanted our children to have a broader perspective of the world and be exposed to different cultures,” says Linda.

So how and why did she turn her back on the strong concoction of crime in high places, the world of finance, fraud, conspiracy and Intelligence, to write a children’s fantasy?

“I had long wanted to write a children’s novel. And it’s just one of those wonderful moments when it happened,” explains Linda.

“One day as I was walking along the beach, I picked up a shell with an intricate pattern on it. It looked to me like a map. Then I thought, what if a boy found it and actually saw it as a map to a parallel universe? And then the ideas just started flowing and I created another character — a sea djinn. The young hero meets him and finds out that he himself has somehow got involved in an ancient battle between djinns. It’s a magical adventure story.”

So it’s a case of Lord-of-the-Rings-meets-Harry-Potter (See Box: “Seaing is Believing” for the book review).

Once again we witness an eternal conflict between the good and evil, which is what most of children’s writing is all about.

“Though readers here will recognise Dubai in it, the backdrop has a universality to it. I love to ground my novels in various real places,” says Linda.

In this sense Sea Djinn has emerged from the groundswell of Dubai.

Explaining the reason why she decided to base her novel in Dubai, Linda says, “I live here and I wanted to create a fantasy world that was also part of my day-to-day life. It enriches my life here. But readers anywhere would be able to relate to it. It is going to be translated into Arabic. I hope it’s going to be published in various countries around the world as well. I want adults as well as children to read it and enjoy the book.”

Talking about the actual writing of Sea Djinn, Linda says, “It has a complicated story. I started it two and a half years ago and it was nearly half completed. And then in October/November 2005 my husband and I got kidnapped by the Iranian Navy while out sailing in international waters. But you can’t argue with 20 heavily armed men with gunboats and Kalashnikovs.

“We were held captives in mainland Iran for two weeks. We weren’t allowed to ring our embassy. In fact, we weren’t allowed to ring anyone for a while. Finally we were allowed to ring our children who were fortunately safe in Dubai. And finally our embassy found out about the kidnapping and the British government got heavily involved. We were released after high-level intervention by the Foreign Ministry.”

Says Linda, recalling the harrowing experience,

“When I got back, I didn’t write for a year because I needed to be with the kids all the time. It was very difficult time and we basically had to shut down and try and not feel anything. My daughter was not even two then, and she wasn’t well and also suffered from terrible separation anxiety.”

After taking a year off from writing, Linda found that writing and escaping into a world of make-belief itself was an antidote. But the fantasy was now tinged with grim reality, which is reflected in the book.

Does she ever miss life in the fast lane?

“No, especially since having children, I like a calmer, more

home-centred life,” Linda replies. “Writing suits that life perfectly as I enjoy the intellectual stimulation of it and the creativity, but I can still be around for my children and enjoy them. Dubai is a wild, vibrant city, but there are oases of calm — the sea and the desert. I like the quiet and sedate life!”

With three children to bring up, Linda doesn’t call herself a fulltime writer. “I try to squeeze time in between,” she smiles. But for a mother of three youngsters, she looks astonishingly unruffled. That perhaps explains how she still manages to write, and write so much.

Is the reading habit among children waning?

“I think J.K. Rowling has worked wonders and has single-handedly brought children back to books,” says Linda. “But yes, I think they are reading less. But nothing can beat the joy of curling up in bed with a book. It’s the ultimate escape.”

Are children today less imaginative than we were, one wonders.

“Maybe they are imaginative in a different way … a different dimension,” says Linda. “These days children, especially older children, are given too much to do. Parents over-schedule their children. There are not many ways they can exercise their imagination. They have no time left to daydream. How many of them have the time to just chill out and gaze into the distance and dream?”

Linda is working on more children’s literature. “That’s what I was doing upstairs before you came,” she smiles.  

Book review: A sea change

Sea Djinn By Linda Davies

“SEAING” IS BELIEVING

FINN A young boy comes to live in Dubai with his aunt after his parents are mysteriously kidnapped. He is desperate to know of their whereabouts. One day, Triton a Sea Djinn, representing the kingdom of Light materialises on the beach and tells him that Finn’s parents have been abducted by Hydrus, the ruler of the kingdom of darkness. But it is Finn Hydrus is after because only he has the antidote to cure his affliction.

Finn, the unlikely and reluctant hero, decides to take the battle to the enemy’s lair. Thus, he, his cousin Georgie and Fred, a boy from his school — three normal children — unwittingly get sucked into the vortex of a cosmic battle  between the kingdom of light and darkness that has been brewing for thousand years. Both sides have supernatural powers.

Sea Djinn has all the ingredients of a children’s fantasy-adventure. But comparison with the magical world J.K. Rowling has conjured up is, perhaps, unkind, yet inevitable. The parallels are too many to be ignored — a young boy being the chosen one, the prophesy pitting the boy against the snake-like Dark Lord, thought thieves who can read minds, an evil teacher, the class bully Dagmar Drax being an undercover fighter for the enemy, astral travel….

One could say in defence of the author that the Potter saga is so definitive and amorphous that no matter what anyone in future concocts in the genre of magic and fantasy, they cannot escape being “inspired” by it. One cannot approach the genre of magical fantasy with innocence anymore.

But where Sea Djinn scores is its language. The author has an amazing feel for words and puts it to effective use. The story unfolds at a rapid pace and there is never a dull moment.

Sea Djinn is the first full-length contemporary children's novel written and set in the Middle East. This, in itself, is significant.

The story being open-ended lends itself to a sequel and also reiterates the sad reality that “You can’t kill evil, merely contain it.” 

Bookish knowledge

MAGRUDY'S IS associated with Jerboa Books that published Sea Djinn is a sister company of Magrudy's. Isobel Abulhoul, Director, Magrudy’s Enterprise, LLC, answers questions about the world of book publishing.

We don’t normally associate publishing books with Dubai. How do you envisage this relatively untrodden area?

Our aim is to publish books that are first rate in content and illustration, educationally sound and, most importantly, will bring joy to children's hearts.

Jerboa Books wishes to publish books in Arabic and English that are relevant to children from or for residents in Arabia. Arabic, is a rich and important language, but not enough is being done to encourage youngsters to read. Reading has to be a pleasure and must also enhance our beliefs, our culture and awareness of our environment.

It is hoped Jerboa Books will become the benchmark for children's books in Arabia.

Can authors based in the country publish books easily?

It is difficult for both the publisher and the would-be author. Children's publishing is a new venture in the UAE and there are not many outlets selling children's books.

We are actively encouraging UAE authors and illustrators and will be publishing several children's stories in 2008, written by a new generation of talent from the UAE. This has to be the single most important development for us this year — to discover and nurture home-grown talent.

We wish to build bridges for the future.

Why did you choose to publish Sea Djinn?

When I had the chance to read the proof I recognised what a good story this was with all the right elements to keep the reader turning the pages.

We have had a very positive response in the few days since the book has been launched.

What criterion is used while selecting to publish a book?

There are no hard and fast rules. With me, it is an instinctive feel for a good tale. I love children's books and have read many over the years — when I was a child and also to my own five children. I hope this background is beneficial in helping me select books that will be successful.

How big is the market for books here?

It is not a large market and parents do not always realise the value of books in the home. Schools and libraries can help change this and it is encouraging to see that schools and libraries are impressed with our books so far.

Typically who are the readers?

Children of all nationalities  aged between seven and 14 years who love a good adventure story with some well drawn characters, twists and turns in the plot, and a satisfying conclusion.

Isn't it a risk publishing children's books, especially children’s fantasy under the huge shadow of Harry Potter?

Who knows? This could be the next Harry Potter! Seriously though, Harry Potter was turned down by several major publishers before being published. Publishing any book is a risk and I believe you have to take a leap of faith and trust that the reader will find the book as enjoyable as I did.

Photo: Shaqeel Qaiser/Khaleej Times