{"id":112098,"date":"2019-10-11T17:20:07","date_gmt":"2019-10-11T06:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/?p=112098"},"modified":"2019-10-14T16:24:06","modified_gmt":"2019-10-14T05:24:06","slug":"listen-tony-jones-on-in-darkness-visible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/2019\/10\/11\/listen-tony-jones-on-in-darkness-visible\/","title":{"rendered":"LISTEN: Tony Jones on In Darkness Visible"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"In<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a running joke among journalists that they all have a novel sitting in the bottom drawer. For Tony Jones, Australian political journalist and host of Q&A<\/em>, it\u2019s truer to say that he had about two or three.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tony had always wanted to write, but found himself caught up in the rush of life as a journalist, reporting diligently on hard facts. Now, he\u2019s the author of two novels, the second of which is In Darkness Visible<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, a book which takes its title from Milton\u2019s Paradise Lost<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s chillingly fitting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe idea of \u2018darkness visible\u2019 is that Lucifer\u2019s fallen angels end up in the burning pits of hell, and the only place they can be seen is in this darkness,\u201d says Tony. \u201cIt\u2019s where you see these monsters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Darkness Visible<\/em> is a political thriller full of such monsters, beginning in a small town on the coast of Croatia where a man named Marin Katich is living under an alias. As the novel opens, he is arrested and locked up in Scheveningen Prison in The Hague. His crime? Possible war crimes in the former Yugoslavia in the \u201890s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a conflict that Tony knows well, having covered it himself as a young foreign correspondent for the ABC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"In<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSome of the scenes set during the conflict reflect things that happen to me or that I witnessed, and so I hope it feels to people who read it like it\u2019s real because for me it was, and I try to give a real sense of the veracity, the horror of these kind of conflicts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book examines the question of whether or not Marin is truly as evil as the crimes he is accused of would suggest, mainly through the eyes of his ex-girlfriend Anna Rosen, who had believed that Marin was dead and immediately sets off to investigate. Anna and Marin are characters that readers will have met in Tony\u2019s first novel, The Twentieth Man<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, which is a kind of prequel to In Darkness Visible<\/em>, although readers will not have to have read it in order to understand this one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Writing a followup novel to his debut proved to be much easier for Tony, who admits to feeling much more confident with the process the second time around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It\u2019s probably a lifetime learning experience becoming a novelist. I hope that I\u2019ll just keep getting better and better at it.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tony Jones visited Booktopia for a book signing session and a podcast, where Ben Hunter and myself asked him all about his new novel. Listen below and grab a signed copy<\/a><\/strong> of In Darkness Visible<\/em> (available while stocks last)!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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