Lightning paced thriller writer of International Intrigue National Bestselling Author

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Spy Dance: Speech By Allan Topol

When I was on my way to the office this morning, I walked through Lafayette Park across from the White House. As I reached Pennsylvania Avenue, I saw the most astonishing sight. A young woman, who was drop dead gorgeous, took off all of her clothes and raced across the street—totally naked—toward the guardhouse in front of the White House.

I’m going to come back to this naked woman in a little bit, but first, let’s talk about Spy Dance. This is a novel which I like to think of as a thoughtful, as opposed to mindless, thriller of international intrigue.

It’s always difficult to discuss a novel without giving the story away, in which case you won’t want to buy the book, so let me simply say: Spy Dance is about a former CIA agent on the run, a sensuous woman in the Israeli Mossad, and a plot hatched in Paris by a ruthless, female French industrialist that affects the Middle East and Saudi Arabian oil.

When Signet/NAL purchased the book, Doug Grad, my editor, wrote me a letter which began with his characterization of the novel.

[W]hat I really like about this [manuscript] aside from the cloak and dagger plot and the strong characters, is the moral dilemma David faces. It’s not often that an international thriller comes along that is a) any good, or b) has memorable characters that you can care about. In fact, it’s downright rare to find main characters as compelling as David and Sagit. And Madame Blanc and Victor Foch are villains you can really hate. The added bonus, that this book actually makes you think about the ephemeral and sometimes shifting qualities of right and wrong, is almost too much! The pace of the story is great, as are the international locales, the intrigue, the plot twists, and of course, the action—assassination attempts, kidnappings, escapes, flights and explosions.”

I was flying when I read these words. My ego was soaring. It came in for a crash landing when I saw that beneath this marvelous letter were four single-spaced pages of revisions which Doug wanted. These weren’t easy changes. For example, he wanted me to redo the basic character of General Chambers which meant rewriting every scene in which the general appears in or is spoken about. Doug wanted a much more exciting ending. He wanted a character I dropped two thirds of the way through to appear in the rest of the novel. After receiving Doug’s letter, my wife, Barbara says that for the next two days, I went into a funk until I figured out how to do what he wanted. I have to say, though, that Doug’s suggestions improved the novel enormously.

As I wrote this novel, I focused on what I believe are the four most critical aspects of any good novel. The first is plot or story. Making the reader want to know, what happens next? Second, the main characters, who must be sympathetic. Third is setting, which must be enticing. And the fourth is theme, which must be provocative.

Let’s return to my naked woman rushing across Pennsylvania Avenue toward the White House gate. Since everyone is now on such a high state of alert, as soon as two guards on duty, a couple of young men, saw this woman, they pulled their guns out and they ran toward her with their eyes bulging in their sockets. This permitted a young man, the woman’s accomplice, to scale the black, wrought iron fence in front and get onto the White House grounds. There he was immediately surrounded by half a dozen armed guards. If he hadn’t raised his hands high in the air, they would have shot him in an instant. Now you want to know what happened next, or I hope you do.

To do that, I want to switch to my second element which is character. Who are these people? What do they want? My first impulse is to say the naked woman and her accomplice are part of Bin Laden’s terrorist gang trying to inflict additional damage on the Unites States. If that’s the case, we’ll hope they’re arrested and imprisoned. We’ll have no sympathy for them.

But suppose that the woman is the illegitimate daughter of the president, who’s running for re-election next month. Her mother died recently. She’s a decent person. She’s gone to school on scholarships. She desperately wants to get her father’s recognition, but he’s steadfastly refused to do that because it will hurt his political career. Her boyfriend is unarmed. He won’t shoot or kill anyone. He’ll stand in the center of the White House lawn and surrender. The whole point of this exercise is to get media attention so the president will have to acknowledge his daughter now. Is she sympathetic?

I think so. As we become obsessed with terrorism and possible attacks since September 11, it’s important to realize that people still have very real personal and emotional issues in their lives. These can and must go on.

Let’s talk about setting. A few years ago, I began working with Henry Morrison, my incredible agent. Henry represented Robert Ludlum on every Ludlum book and other projects from day one. Henry’s a marvelous storehouse of knowledge and he helps his authors from the conception of an idea. The first time I met with Henry, he wanted me to do a novel like Spy Dance, which, while international, has a strong Washington focus. This city is a great setting. The events and places that those of us who live here take for granted are what the rest of the country and the world are desperate to hear about. When we go traveling, people always ask us what do they think in Washington? Art Buchwald once wrote that before he goes to New York, he sits down and reads Newsweek Magazines from cover to cover so he could sound like an expert from Washington.

Fourth is theme. In our story about the naked women that we’re creating today we now have a provocative theme: a girl’s rejection by her father and her desire for paternal acceptance. It’s a powerful and universal theme.

I have to be honest with you. I don’t want you to be disappointed. The naked woman has nothing to do with Spy Dance, and I didn’t even see her this morning. That’s the trouble with listening to fiction writers. They love to make up stories. You never know what to believe.

Now let’s circle back to Spy Dance and talk about these elements in the book. I won’t say any more about plot because, I’d like you to buy and read the book.

Turning to character, my hero, David, is a man who served his country, selflessly for many years. Still he has lost everything. His position and the woman he loved. Finally, he’s starting over with a new life, but people won’t leave him alone.

Sagit, the heroine, has been a loyal career Mossad agent, rising higher in the Mossad then any other Sephardic woman. To do so, she has surrendered her personal life.

Sagit is a feisty woman. Those are my editor’s words. He said that Topol writes feisty women.

Setting. The action in Spy Dance moves back and forth among Israel, France, London, Saudi Arabia, Zurich, Dubai and Washington. I’ve been able to incorporate my passion for food, wine and travel in describing the scenes in these places around the world.

Finally, let’s talk about theme. In today’s world, there are many serious and troublesome issues facing us. In my law practice I deal on a daily basis with complex environmental issues like global warming and chemical contamination of drinking water. At the same time as I pursued my legal career, like everyone in this audience, I have been concerned with issues relating to the Middle East.

I have deeply held views on these issues and I have grappled with how to convey my feelings. One approach would be to write Op-Ed pieces for newspapers which are difficult to get published, and I have done just that. I have had articles in the New York Times and Washington Post among other newspapers on Israel and the Middle East.

However, I began to realize that fiction is an effective vehicle to address serious subjects. While a novel is ultimately about people, the story, if told effectively, can be educational and deal with the serious international political issues with which the author is concerned. Many novelists such as Graham Green, for Haiti, Africa and Argentina, and Leon Uris, for Israel and Northern Ireland, did just that.

In Spy Dance, I try to address two serious international subjects. The first is oil and energy, and specifically the United States and the rest of the free world’s dependence on oil from Saudi Arabia. The second is Israel’s place in the Middle East.

With respect to Saudi oil, it is both unfortunate and unconscionable that almost 30 years after the 1973 oil embargo our economy is still highly dependent upon Saudi oil and whoever controls that oil. Regardless of whether you believe that the House of Saud, the corrupt and despotic Saudi rulers rulers, are friends of the United States or not, the fact is that they are themselves very much at risk. Five years ago a CIA study characterized the House of Saud as being in its last days. Things have gotten only worse since. If the House of Saud does fall, it’s likely they’ll be replaced with a fundamentalist regime as in Iran. And where will our economy be then?

On this point, Spy Dance is timely, but I wasn’t being prophetic when I wrote the book. The awful events of September 11 were not foreseeable. However, much of the intrigue among the U.S. and Middle Eastern nations that has occurred recently, follows a familiar script—one that developed since the world’s richest oil reserves were found in Saudi Arabia. And Madame Blanc, the ruthless French industrialist, in Spy Dance understands the importance of all that Saudi oil and has found a way to get control of it.

People ask me how can you write a book that deals in part with Saudi Arabia when you have never visited there. I’m not defensive on this point. Saudi Arabia may be the only country in the world that doesn’t give visa to tourists. The only non-Saudis who can visit the country are religious pilgrims or those who have business dealings there, like employees of oil companies. So I read lots of books about the country and did research.

Let’s turn to Israel now. The Israel in which David has taken refuge is a country struggling to survive amid terrorist attacks and difficult economic circumstances. It is a country occupying a small parcel of land in a rough neighborhood. The Israel in Spy Dance is one that cooperates with and supplies useful intelligence to the American government and the CIA because that’s what happens in real life. As the story in Spy Dance demonstrates, the relationship between the United States an Israel is mutual. The United States gains from having a strong Israel as its ally.

But these serious themes are not an end in itself for Spy Dance. The novel is about people. I hope that you will relate to them and care about what happens to them. It is about the individual’s ability to affect world events and at the same time his struggle to have a life independent of the governments and bureaucracies many of us serve.

Before publication, fiction writers rarely receive feedback except for criticism from editors, agents and family members. A couple of weeks ago, though, my editor in New York forwarded an e-mail from a branch chief at Barnes & Noble in Los Angeles. I was excited to receive it, and I want to share it with you. He wrote:

“Spy Dance is probably the best spy thriller I have read in years. It is so well crafted that everything just follows in order. There are no wrong surprises and people who just pop up out of nowhere to fill the story out. Everything just fits like a glove. I could not put the book down. The characters, both good and bad, are believable and just keep the story going to it’s exciting conclusion. This will be my staff recommend in November.”

In the days following the September 11 attack, I began to worry whether the publisher might delay the release of Spy Dance. To be sure, Spy Dance is not a novel about terrorism. On the other hand, the focus of the novel is the Middle East. Happily, Penguin Putnam went forward with the original publication date. I have had some inquiries from Hollywood, but so far no movie contract.

On this point, I’m happy to tell you that my next novel is complete and will be published in January 2003. The serious international topic I have selected for that novel, entitled Dark Ambition, is China and its desire to seize control of Taiwan.

One wonderful aspect of writing a novel is the opportunity to create a story and characters. I enjoyed living with David and Sagit, as the story developed in my mind. Even when I wasn’t writing, I was thinking about them. That’s part of the thrill and enjoyment of writing a novel.

I hope that you’ll have as much fun reading Spy Dance as I did writing it.

In the meantime, I’m ready to get started on a new project. Despite the serious issues of the day, it begins with a naked woman racing across Pennsylvania Avenue.