The tattoos on Imhotep’s skullcap were featured at the end of 2LM. Did you plan how the whole Labyrinth would unfold while writing the previous book?

Mostly, yes, I did. The idea that the skullcap’s tattoo was arranged in a spiral was always there, as were the two trees with their thrones being placed on either side, the notion of the Emperor’s Route, and the Endless Tunnel. Beyond that, I left myself a little room to come up with some new mazes, like the rotating maze.

You make the stakes feel very real for the characters early on—we all thought Zoe really was a goner!

I wanted to give readers a real shock right from the start. That opening scene is designed to be an out-of-control blitz of wild action and I wanted it to end with a jarring and unexpected emotional loss.

And since I do have a history of killing off nice characters, I felt readers might think—even if only for a moment—that I’d done it again.

In the end, the stakes are everything. And while the fate of the universe is ultimately at stake in this book, for Jack, the wellbeing of his close-knit team and family is what matters most to him.

In my novels, I’ve often pondered the idea of a hero. In Scarecrow, where Shane Schofield loses a loved one, he asks if the world even cares about what he’s doing; if the millions of people he saves actually recognise what he sacrifices in doing so. It was similar here: I wanted Jack to contemplate if it’s worth saving humanity when you have to see your loved ones die.

But it’s not just bottomless caverns and endless tunnels our heroes have to worry about. The Bronze and Silvermen were menacing enough, and in The One Impossible Labyrinth you finally introduce the Goldmen.

Yes, once we had bronzemen and silvermen, we had to have goldmen! I like the idea that each one is slightly better and more capable than the previous model.

With the bronzemen, Jack figured out a way to beat them. And in this book, he finds out that you can defeat a silverman, almost.

For the goldmen, I just wanted them to be something totally dangerous. So dangerous, you can’t even look them in the face.

And yet, I still got to have a little fun and create Smiley, a bronzeman who is totally loyal and will defend whoever he is told to defend. Some of my favourite moments in this book involve Smiley stepping in front of danger!

While Jack and his group battle their way through the Labyrinth, some of our other heroes are discovering the true location of one of the most famous cities in the world—Troy!