Laurence O'Bryan – No 1 Best-Selling Conspiracy Thriller Author

I am right in the middle of editing The Jerusalem Puzzle. At present Sean and Isabel are in Cairo and there’s a lot going on.

One of the challenges for a contemporary mystery writer, who writes about such places as Jerusalem and Cairo, is that so much is in flux in these cities. Sure, I follow Egyptian newspapers and Israeli newspapers, and I have linked to one of each for you, their English language versions, and I read books and articles (see my reading list here on Goodreads), but glimpsing where these countries might be in 12 to 24 months is a real challenge.

There are deep pressures at work, some of which I witnessed when I visited the Palestinian territories, the Negev and Jerusalem earlier this year.

Driving towards the Sinai Peninsula February 2012

Some of the other considerations I must keep in mind are the religious views of the people in these countries and the right wing shifts, the violence and the polarisation taking place in many European countries.

I see my role as a storyteller, someone who reports what happens to people caught up in a serious escalation in this area.

I see the good and the evil and the impact of forces almost beyond our control.

I hope you will enjoy Sean and Isabel’s story as it unfolds in Jerusalem and Cairo.

Please wish me luck in the next few weeks as I finish my final personal edit of The Jerusalem Puzzle. After that Harper Collins will conduct a deep edit and I will be back to the manuscript again in July to work on it.

I wish you all the best with whatever you are working on and thank you for following the story of The Jerusalem Puzzle as it unfolds.