CHARLIE CHARTERS
Charlie Charters was born in London, raised in Fiji, spent a large part of his working life based in Hong Kong, and now mostly lives near Malton, North Yorkshire, which rightly considers itself the horse-racing capital of the known world. One of his first memories was traveling with his mother, an award-winning filmmaker, as she tried to piece together the rackety strands of Somerset Maugham’s life-changing travels through the Pacific. This was eye-opening stuff for a seven-year-old: spying, brothels, homosexuality, suicide, casual affairs, and that was just the Good Guys. Those trips, and being caned on his 13th birthday by a headmaster whose own father it turned out had similarly thrashed the schoolboy Roald Dahl, gave him an early desire to become a writer. However he did very little about this until turning forty, by which time he had worked, variously, as a racing tipster, war reporter, radio DJ, award-winning TV producer and presenter, as well as several stretches of employment within the sex industry. He was the youngest ever senior vice president of the legendary sports marketing company ISL, whose collapse in 2001 was the second biggest corporate failure in Swiss history and nearly bankrupted FIFA and a number of other international sports federations. In 2004, he helped launch the British Lions-styled Pacific Islanders rugby team, featuring the best players from Fiji, Samoa and Tonga. He is married to Vanessa, and they have four children and a Labrador that likes to watch the news.
Of his first novel Bolt Action to be published in 2010 Harlan Coben has said ‘A terrific debut. Charters is definitely one to watch’ , while Andy McNab singled it out as 'A great read...gritty and authentic'.
For more information visit www.charliecharters.com
LATEST BOOK: BOLT ACTION
Since 9/11, the door between the cockpit and the cabin on an airliner must be locked and impossible to break down. But what happens when the pilot and crew have all been poisoned?
This is the ultimate terrorist spectacular, played out as the world watches, blogs and tweets . . .
Also on board, by chance, is a renegade group of British ex-soldiers, fleeing the attentions of MI5. Can Captain Tristie Merritt and her band of unlikely heroes save the plane - and the world - from disaster?
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bolt Action, Hodder; 2010, Air Lock, Hodder, 2011.
