Best Thriller Books Review It’s a pleasure to read a spy thriller that highlights the grim and dangerous realities of the tradecraft with the no-nonsense demeanor of a well-informed and experienced scribe. When a senior Lebanese intelligence officer in Beirut looks for an out, British intelligence makes it their directive to get the man out, […]
What Early Readers Are Saying About Beirut Extraction With publication day fast approaching, I’ve been reflecting on the journey that brought Beirut Extraction to life — the research, the rewrites, the late nights tightening dialogue and tension, and the quiet question every author eventually asks: How will readers respond? Beirut Extraction is not a conventional, […]
Where to Order Beirut Extraction There are cities that remember everything. Beirut is one of them. It remembers the shelling, the bargains struck in shuttered rooms, the men who arrived with clean hands and left with them less so. It remembers the ships that came at dusk and slipped away before dawn. And now, if […]
Character Spotlight: Emma — The Agent Who Knows Too Much In this first entry of the series, we begin with one of the Watchers: Emma. In every intelligence operation, there’s someone who sees more than they are supposed to. Someone who notices the small missteps, the inconvenient truths, the gaps the higher-ups hope no one […]
How Real World Politics Inspired Beirut Extraction When I began writing Beirut Extraction, I didn’t set out to mirror the nightly news. But it’s impossible to write a spy novel set in today’s Middle East without absorbing the real world—the shifting borders, the uneasy alliances, the quiet deals made in back rooms by men who […]
Why I Set My Novel in Beirut When people hear I’ve set my debut spy thriller, Beirut Extraction, in Lebanon’s capital, the reactions tend to fall into two camps. Some lean in with interest—“Of course, Beirut, perfect!” Others frown, puzzled, as though I’ve chosen a stage too obscure or dangerous for fiction. The truth is […]
Why Choose Beirut as the Location? When people hear I’ve set my debut spy thriller, Beirut Extraction, in Lebanon’s capital, the reactions tend to fall into two camps. Some lean in with interest—“Of course, Beirut, perfect!” Others frown, puzzled, as though I’ve chosen a stage too obscure or dangerous for fiction. The truth is that […]
Join the mailing list to receive new blog posts, early project updates and insights from the world that inspires my writing.
Copyright 2025 © Nick Irving