Barry Fulton

Barry Fulton is a retired Foreign Service Officer, former Air Force officer, management consultant, and university lecturer. He has been posted to Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, to the US Mission to NATO in Brussels, and to American Embassies in Islamabad, Tokyo, and Rome. Specializing in diplomacy and information technology, he is a management consultant at the Department of State. He serves on the board of InterMedia and is a member of the Washington Institute of Foreign Affairs. He lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland, with his wife MaryAnn and spends weekends in a cabin in West Virginia.

Q. Which writers inspire you?

Here are a few: Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allen Poe, Graham Greene, Raymond Chandler, John MacDonald, Dashiell Hammett, Gabriel García Márquez, Kurt Vonnegut, John Barth, Philip Roth, John le Carré, Donna Leon, John Irving, William Gibson, Umberto Eco, Robert Crais, David Ignatius, Jefferson Bass, Louise Penny, Tana French, Mike McCormack, Jason Matthews.

Q. Why do you write?

I’ve written broadcast scripts, diplomatic reports, and academic studies. All require discipline to capture a complex reality with words chosen for economy and power. Writing fiction requires no less discipline, but awakens imagination that lay dormant during a lifetime of serious writing.

Q. Where did the idea for THE LADY IS BUGGED come from?

My first novel, FLAME, set near my cabin in Berkeley Springs, WV, features "Hackers, Artists, Lovers, and Spies." Its protagonist, Thomas Sebastian Scott, travels to Pakistan to unravel a nuclear puzzle. His mission led to the sequel, The Lady is Bugged, where he is sent from West Virginia to Italy to stop another deadly threat. The third in the Thomas Sebastian Scott series, Behind the Seventh Veil, will be available in mid-March. It is set in Pittsburgh, New York, Vienna, Istanbul, and Tabriz.