Page 95 - RPS Awards 2023 Coverage Book

not: will younger customers, accustomed to on-demand, ever again cluster around a telly for a
particular moment?

Professional jealousy

And so to a book launch for a new thriller, The Spy Across the Water, by my former BBC
colleague Jim Naughtie. He is already getting John le Carré comparisons. It contains, so far, no
offensive language or unsettling sadomasochism, and is irritatingly good. I’ve published two
novels and my wife’s dry verdict on the second after hearing a chortle over the keyboard was
accurate enough to finish me off: “The trouble is, you had much more fun writing it than
anyone’s ever had reading it.”