What attracted you to the time and place you write about?

I wrote a minor thesis on the influence of traditional English drama on Shakespeare for my BA then expanded it for my MA. Shakespeare’s times have fascinated me ever since, in terms of the drama, the setting, the lifestyle, the food, the fashions and especially the politics..

What do you draw inspiration from?

Ultimately, the greatest inspiration is the history itself. In the case of Queen Elizabeth and her relationships with the men and women most closely surrounding her, I am fascinated by attempting to reinterpret those relationships. And her relationship with Essex is at once the most problematic and most fascinating. As I am by no means the first to observe! In Shadow of the Axe I try to examine the way she treats him as a wayward son while he sees himself as a man of reputation and consequence being ordered about by an old crone who might be Queen but whose family are no match for his in terms of historical standing. So when she boxes his ears in front of the court he runs out of patience completely, giving an opening to the enemies who will stop at nothing to destroy him.

What was the first idea of your character in your story and the series as a whole. Whether they are a real historical person and if so, what impact does that have?

Robert Poley existed – famously so in certain circles. He was an ‘intelligencer’ employed by Walsingham, Burghley and Robert Cecil. Although there is no record of him being directly involved with Essex, he really was involved with the unmasking of the Babington plot, the downfall of the Queen of Scots and the death of Christopher Marlowe. Many commentators believe he engineered Marlowe’s murder – while others believe he spirited the living playwright away to continue his career under several aliases. The confusion surrounding Poley and his actions opens the door to me and my fictions.

How has your character developed as he stayed with you, influenced other work and become involved with new characters?

I am currently working on the sixth and last of the Queen’s Intelligencer series which details (and fictionalises) Poley’s relationship with Marlowe and his part in his death. Shadow of the Axe was the first in the series and entangled Poley (on Cecil’s behalf) in the downfall of Essex. The plot was based on The Spy Who Came in from the Cold as Poley, apparently shamed and imprisoned, befriends one of Essex’s men and is slowly inducted into his circle – with fatal results all round. Later novels have seen him mature into George Smiley – but always with a touch of Harry Palmer, if not of Bond himself.

Do you prefer standalones or series, and why?

Although I have written standalone novels with some success, I prefer series. There are 30 Richard Mariner contemporary ‘adventure-thrillers’, six Tom Musgrave Elizabethan murder-mysteries (all featuring Robert Poley in another incarnation), five Caesar’s Spies set between Caesar’s death and the Battle of Philippi, three Trojan Murders solved by Odysseus on his way to Troy as well as the five Queen’s Intelligencer spy stories, soon to be six. Series allow me to carry research over from one book to another – not taking it for granted or doing less but doing yet more and digging deeper and deeper into the past.

What is your favourite thing about your character?

There is very little to admire about the historical Robert Poley. He spent long periods in prison (listening out for seditious talk and betraying his loose-lipped cell-mates to the authorities). A job he did so well that Ben Jonson mentions him slightingly as an untrustworthy evesdropper. While imprisoned, he apparently entertained a mistress, Joan Yeomans, as his wife and daughter Ann were left destitute. He was never quite trusted by his employers and yet seems to have been (when not in jail) an active courier (especially to the court of King James in Scotland) and became ‘our man’ on the Low Countries. I have neatened him up, gone a good way to explaining and excusing some of his bad points. And, given he was a Catholic working for the Anglican secret service, I have given him sensitivity and a fragile conscience. His career covers nearly 40 years and there are few major events that happened in England, Scotland, Ireland and Europe between 1570 and 1606 that he is not an active if illusory part of.