How do you build your characters? Do any of your friends or acquaintances make their way onto the page?

For me, characters come to life on the page. I have an idea about a character, but I don’t really know who they are until I start writing them. Then I have to think about how they look, how they talk, what motivates them. And they change all the time. I’m always rereading and thinking, So and so would never say that. Some of my friends and their attributes do sneak in, but for the most part, my characters become themselves, and I tend to think of them as real people who actually exist. If anyone, they might all have a little bit of me in them, as I am the one writing/creating them.

Which of the characters do you most relate to? Did you have a favorite to write?

In this book, I am closest to Luke. He’s the younger, taller, handsomer, smarter, more talented me. Although whoever I am writing at the moment tends to be my favorite. And I love writing bad guys and psychopaths, because I’m always trying to see what makes them tick. Awful people are so much fun on the page and so awful in real life!

Smith describes private collectors as thieves keeping art away from the rest of the world. Do you agree with him?

No. It made sense for his INTERPOL character to think like that, but most art collectors I know are people who love art and want to fill their lives with it. If I could afford it, I’d do the same.

How can art be shared most equitably?

Museums are great equitable places, public warehouses that take care of masterpieces big and small. I was just in NYC’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, and it’s one of the best places in the world. You can spend the day imagining yourself in ancient armor or walk around the Egyptian Temple of Dendur or look at Impressionist paintings—any art you desire is there.

But there are many kinds of “art.” You can frame a block of stamps (as I did with a recent Marvin Gaye stamp), put it on the wall, and it looks amazing and only cost the price of the stamps.

The layers of surveillance make the plot nerve-racking, even when Luke’s research is taking its time to progress. How do you balance suspense and frustration in your pacing?

A character’s frustration has nothing to do with a book’s pacing, which is a separate thing that you, the author, control. The reader is thinking Hurry up, Luke, because they’re ahead of him and worried, which is what you want because it ratchets up the suspense.

Do you have any advice for aspiring authors, especially those interested in history and thrillers?

I always say read. Things come to you when you’re reading that might not otherwise. Plus, you learn from other writers. If you want to write thrillers, read a lot of them and dissect a couple to see how the author constructed the plot. The same with historical novels. My initial inspiration for writing this book came from two novels, Possession and The French Lieutenant’s Woman. Of course I read so many crime novels that a part of my brain is always thinking Where is the mystery? And in any book, I need to know What is the “engine” that is driving this story?