Jack Lench

Hi readers! I'm from Suffolk.

I would like to be able to say that I went to university, that I studied English, that I was the star pupil in literature at school. I can’t. I hated English at school. The English teacher didn’t like me either. He said that I never checked my work for spelling and grammar mistakes so he called me lazy and he called me a ‘dullard’ (Suffolk for ‘ dim witted’). Strangely, whenever I reviewed my essays, I couldn’t spot any errors. The spelling looked fine to my eyes. I was none of the things he called me. I was, in fact dyslexic. Millions of people love stories, thousands long to write them but probably never will. They may have the writing skills but not the imagination. For me it is the reverse. My English teacher took away my confidence, my belief in myself to ever put pen to paper but he never took away my imagination.

My writing started in the form of postcards and letters to my father while I was working on an arable farm in Saudia Arabia, assembling sugar cane combine harvesters in Mexico and repairing agricultural machines in Jamaica. Over the years, I kept notes on storylines and plots, the inspiration for which came from the people I people met and a general interest in history, politics and places.

For the last ten years, I have been a self-employed van driver/courier and travel through Europe every month. As I cross France, Belgium, Switzerland into Italy, I have time to ponder over plots, storylines and characters.

The idea for this book has been inside my head for over thirty years, so long now that I don’t even remember where the idea came from. So why write it now?

They say that the gift of middle age is wisdom so now that I am in the ‘mid-century’ phase of existence, it’s time to reflect on and re-evaluate my life. I look back on my achievements so far and wonder if there are likely to be anymore. It’s time to stop procrastinating and write the novel that I have always had inside me. It is a real concern that what I write about won’t interest anyone but me but now is the time to step out of my shadow and believe that all things are possible.

Illicit Deception is my debut novel and is a thriller about espionage, secrets, diamond theft and conspiracy with a love story running through it. Essentially, it is about people not being who they say they are. It takes three, tiny pieces of history and adds/changes one small intrinsic fact. In doing so, changes the course of history