John Templeton Smith is one of that rare breed - a world-renowned author freely willing to admit he had a lot of help getting started from someone else. Believe me you don't come across those very often!

 That "someone else" was of course Desmond Bagley.

 John met Bagley while he was living on Guernsey and reading the publicity information given at Amazon.co.uk offers quite a few surprises. John served in the RAF before becoming a commercial airline pilot. Being an accomplished pilot it was during this time that he held the fastest solo trans-Atlantic crossing time. He lectures in America on creative writing and flies aircraft from their manufacturers across to their customers in Europe. Apparently it is during these long flights that John gets stuck into his writing. Er… Hmmm! Thank goodness for the "auto-pilot" is all I can say!

It is clear that John has taken to heart Bagley's insistence that thorough research into a given subject is the only way to be able to talk authoritatively about it, and to this end he has traveled to all points N, S, E and W. However while writing John does the same as Bagley did, namely: lock yourself away in a room with as few distractions as possible until the job is done!

This involves writing through the night if the creative flow is on track, taking breaks only when nature insists enough is enough. Like Bagley John is fond of classical music and often writes to its accompaniment. Being a visual writer means that that he has to "see" or "hear" his characters in action. This reminds me of the oft repeated scenario you see in TV or film thrillers where the featured author acts out, to some degree, the next chapter before putting it down on paper. In humourous vein I'm reminded of that Jack Lemon film where he plays the famous cartoonist who then goes on to kill off a character - sadly his readership actually believe he's committed the crime! Not true of course. A point many readers of fiction should note.

John's writing process takes between three to six months, though the research done beforehand has taken a lot longer. At the time I spoke with him he was finishing his latest book "Then a Soldier" over here in England, but as John splits himself between time in the US and on his travels doing research he is rarely in one place for very long.

The tales John has to tell of Bagley and his work make for very interesting listening. Bagley didn't have an agent and approached his first book publisher direct, telling him that he wrote stories like the already famous Alistair MacLean. Surprisingly this tactic worked, though the free and easy attitude of publishers wasn't to last for long. Some time in the sixties, John estimates, publishers began to rely more and more on agents, preferring to concentrate on the one or two big authors already on their books - a carrot to the up and coming - but to the detriment of less well known ones.

This is a list of John's major publications to date:

As John Smith -

SKYTRAP (1983 H/B Century - 1985 P/B Corgi )

PATTERSON'S VOLUNTEERS (1984 H/B Century - 1986 P/B Corgi )

ROLLING THUNDER (1986 H/B Century-Hutchinson )

As John Templeton Smith -

THE FIFTH FREEDOM (1988 H/B Michael Joseph 1989 P/B Sphere )

WHITE LIE (1999 Pocket Books P/B )

SAIGON EXPRESS (2000 Pocket Books P/B )

Soon to be released -

THEN A SOLDIER (2002 Pocket Books P/B )

As any reader will note there is a large gap between 1988 and 1999, a time when John was working hard on a novel that never made it to the bookshelves. This probably due to the contentious nature of the story. There seems to be a point at which people are willing to publish and read any kind of horror or violence, but beyond which they will suddenly get cold feet. This may be when the author chooses to probe a little deeper into his subject. Is there a point at which it can be said there is too much research done? A good question, but for the average man (or author) in the street it should be said there can be no such thing.

 John's back on track again though, with the completion of a trilogy featuring his serial "hero" John Winter. For some up-to-date Amazon links and to help a charity at the same time, take a look at the links page on this site.

John Templeton Smith's style reminds me a lot of Craig Thomas, that stalwart of the grand military/political adventure whose own serial hero has been played by Clint Eastwood in the film Firefox. Read "Winter Hawk" to get a feeling for what I mean.

As well as being a world-class author, John also writes for Pilot magazine and in his spare time is working on the screen-play for a new television series.

In a conversation I had with Joan Bagley she summed-up this friend of her husband's thus: "A very nice man - but tough as hell."

A man of great energy and brim-full of splendid stories to tell. Read him.