On 22 July 1969 Bagley visited Iceland to conduct research for his novel Running Blind. It was Bagley’s first espionage novel and the first of his published novels to be researched on location, the consequence of which is a story displaying a detailed authenticity of background. It was to become one of his most popular novels, which was later produced by BBC Scotland as a three-part television series. However following publication in 1970 it was Hollywood that had taken an interest in this novel and the author was approached by film producer Aaron Rosenburg who asked Bagley to visit Los Angeles to write a screenplay for the novel.

Bagley’s visit to Hollywood during late 1970, early 1971 turned out to be quite an unpleasant experience, he later recalled:

This was a terrible experience that I would not wish to experience again. Everything you have read about Hollywood is true. I felt it was a great honour when I was informed that a movie would be made from the book and that I should travel to Hollywood to write the script. But my experience of the capital of cinema was a poor experience. I was there three months, and during the whole time we could not agree on a script. I sat there with a good idea in mind whilst around me sat a group of senior men who could not agree.

Bagley and his wife returned from the USA and very soon afterwards, during January and February of 1971, went on a month-long tour crossing the Sahara desert. In responding to a personal letter before the visit, the author mentioned that he was considering writing a novel about the desert for publication in 1972.

Returning from the Sahara, Bagley attempted a first draft of a book with the working title Sahara Novel but abandoned it quite quickly, and was still faced with the problem of providing Collins with a book for publication in 1971. He decided to revisit The Freedom Trap, originally started in 1966 and abandoned, completing it in May that year for publication in June. 1971 was a troublesome year for the author, for in that year he started four books, all of which collapsed somewhere between chapters four and six. He attributed this period of writer’s block mainly to his Hollywood trip, and during that year Bagley became increasingly frustrated with the movie industry, writing on 16 July:

One thing that frets me about the film industry is that the movie moguls are hypnotised by instancy – a book must be written now, now, now.