Press

Press, radio, TV and podcast interviews with Ava

Murder By The Book: 1 August 2022

Getting the inside scoop on The Chase on the podcast of one of America’s oldest mystery bookstores.

FULL INTERVIEW

Radio, TV and podcasts

Woman’s Hour: 28 August 2024

Ava joins Charlotte Philby to discuss spy novels, writing, and what it is to be a woman in a male-dominated field.

Sky News: 31 July 2024

Ava on the breakfast show discussing The Trap and why the next James Bond should be a woman...

BBC Radio London: 13 September 2023

Ava discusses the most realistic fictional spy with Salma El-Wardany… and it’s not who you’d think…

Sky News: 12 September 2023

A chat with Jayne Secker about spies undercover and how they operate in the 21st century.

The Monocle: 12 March 2023

An in-depth discussion with Georgina Godwin about The Chase, working in counter-terrorism and more.

FULL INTERVIEW

Saturday Live: 23 February 2023

Ava joins Nikki Bedi and Rev. Richard Coles on BBC Radio 4 Saturday Live to chat all things The Chase.

FULL INTERVIEW

The Bunker: 28 February 2023

How hard is it to become a spy? Ava explores this and more with Siân Pattenden.

FULL INTERVIEW

Colin Murray: 20 February 2023

Ava chats to Colin Murray about writing “the female James Bond” and how MI6 handles bomb scares…

Listed Londoner: 5 March 2023

Ava chats to Robert Elms on BBC Radio London about her favourite places in London.

FULL INTERVIEW

The Afternoon Show: 13th April 2023

Ava talks to Michelle McManus about The Chase and its upcoming sequel, The Traitor.

Interviews with Ava

"Some crime and spy fiction is appalling, ludicrously awful at points. Women are victims, there for their looks, to be used and abused. I met female spies and saw none of them on the pages of those books. So, I did something about it."

The Metro
"The new queen of spy fiction: how Ava Glass went from murder reporting to the bestseller list."

The Guardian
"Being a crime reporter was a great education about all aspects of human nature. I learnt to comport myself so that I could become invisible.... being able to disappear into a room can be a marvellous thing."

The Daily Express
"Emma is loosely based on the first spy I ever met. The series is my imagining of what it would be like to be her. There's a hint of loneliness in that life because nobody knows who you really are, and I wanted to capture that."

The Sunday Post
"When I worked with spies, at least half were women. It suits the spy agencies for people not to know this, because you’re much more easily fooled if you underestimate a woman’s ability to be a spy. It was really important to me to write what I saw and fill in that gap."

Scottish Woman Magazine
"I met female spies all the time but I never see them in books and I rarely see them on television – certainly not as equal and capable spies as men. That bewilders me as the reality is they are all those things."

Daily Star
"I read every book that is considered a great spy novel and not one of them was by a woman or about a woman, not a single one, and the female characters in them were generally unrecognisable as women..."

The National
"When I worked with spies, I was the only person who everybody knew everything about: they knew the contents of my bank account, they knew my credit card debt, they knew who my family was, where my parents lived, where I’d spent my life, every place I’d lived in the time I’d been in England, and I didn’t even know their names."

Texas Monthly
"If I was choosing a spy I’d send a woman and an older woman at that, because they tend to be ignored and that makes them incredibly useful."

The Scottish Sun
"I've been working as a crime novelist for decades now, and as a journalist have investigated hundreds of brutal murders and visited countless grisly crime scenes. But there are some stories that stick with you."

Woman Magazine (£)
"If you're a spy, you want to walk into a room and everybody’s eyes just sort of skim across you. So you can’t be too perfect or too imperfect. There can’t be anything terribly memorable about you. You just want to look like everybody else.”

The Sun
"There have been many female spies, from the very beginning. One reason women make such good spies is because men underestimate them so much, they never suspect."

Evening Standard
"What book first gave me the reading bug? This is hard to say as I’ve been a voracious reader since I learned the alphabet. When I was 11, I won an award for reading and writing reports on the most books in my school year group. I read 151. How could I choose just one? But the book that made me want to be a writer was The Secret History by Donna Tartt."

The Daily Mail
"While there’s an element of Bondian fantasy to Emma’s ingenuity, she’s also flawed. When things blow up, she gets hurt. I hope she feels real to people. She feels real to me."

Publishers Weekly: Spy vs Spy
"I do think the key to caring what happens, even if a book has the greatest plot ever written, is character. To me, Emma Makepeace is almost a real person. I can see her in my mind. I can hear her voice in my head. I know so much about her childhood, her background and where she lives."

The Big Thrill
"In my experience, no matter how far you travel, you can't escape yourself. The past tags along. No matter how hard you try to leave it behind, it always packs itself in your luggage."

Shelf Awareness
"I remember everything about the first corpse I saw. His striped shirt. His brown belt. Khaki trousers. No shoes. It was 95 degrees and the smell was indescribable. And on that day I made myself a promise that I would not throw up. I had to get tough to do the job."

Tyla
"Working with MI5 gave me a window into their world. I learned how dangerous it was, how deceptive, and it has fascinated me ever since. I was in counter-terrorism for five years and I have no idea to this day who was a spy and who wasn't."

The Guildford Magazine
"The cover copy for this new spy thriller begins, ‘Nothing about Emma Makepeace is real. Not even her name.’ The same could be said for Glass..."

Amazon Books of the Month
"It’s about listening to your own characters. When you create a character, you give them personality traits which have to stay because we don’t change that much. It’s about remembering what you’ve created and being true to that, even if it screws your plot."

The Founder
"She was the first spy I ever met and I didn't know she was a spy. She was so plausible and normal, I hadn't the slightest inkling. I had such respect for her. As a journalist, I know you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

Ham & High / The Islington Gazette
"When I was a reporter I felt I could understand the motive of a murder 9 times out of 10. Maybe it was related to anger, drugs, or poverty. But today, we’re seeing so many cases get attention that are wilder and unexplainable."

Metro
"I decided to try writing when I was at university. I was studying business, which I didn't love. After watching All The President's Men, I spontaneously switched to the journalism programme. Once I discovered I could write, no one could stop me. My fate was set."

Writing Magazine
"If you can get a job in the British Government as a cleaner or a coffee shop worker you can melt into a crowd. It's a life of deception on every level."

The Daily Star

Articles, reviews and short stories by Ava

"Edinburgh through the eyes of a spy novelist... Ava Glass stakes out a city that more than lends itself to tales of espionage."

ARTICLE

The Financial Times
“In her career in counter-terrorism, Ava Glass observed the dirty side of espionage –but she never saw a shaken martini.”

ARTICLE

The Times
Temperature Rises: in this short story, Emma Makepeace plays the waiting game.

SHORT STORY

The Sunday People
“Ava Glass looks at some of the wildest, most revelatory nonfiction books about espionage and the life of spies.”

REVIEWS

Crime Reads
“On Her Shelf: 'Alias Emma' author on British intelligence, the spy who fooled her and the best thriller she’s read lately.”

ARTICLE

Parade Magazine
"Former British Intelligence worker Ava Glass offers a sneak peek into her writing life."

ARTICLE

Haringey Community Press
Making A Spy: in this short story, Emma Makepeace faces the ultimate test of her mettle.

SHORT STORY

Daily Express / Daily Star (£)
"Ava Glass on drawing inspiration from real spies, and the very real spy war being waged just out of our view.."

ARTICLE

Crime Time
"Author Ava Glass tells us how the inspiration for her new novel, The Traitor, comes from real life."

ARTICLE

Writing.ie
"An extract from The Traitor by Ava Glass."

EXTRACT

Shots Mag
"Ava Glass on drawing inspiration from real spies and the truth being stranger than fiction..."

ARTICLE

Crime Time
"In recent years Britain has seen an attempted assassination of ex-Russian spies with a deadly nerve agent in a leafy rural town, double-agents working in embassies, a trio of Russian spies posing as normal workers… Ava Glass talks about how real spies inspired her novels."

ARTICLE

TN2 Magazine
"You don't have to be a billionaire to enjoy a super yacht experience – even if it's only for a few days, writes author Ava Glass."

ARTICLE

The Scotsman
"You may well have met a spy at some point in your life...and you would never know that you’d been met, identified, and assessed in a quick, efficient encounter that you could barely remember ten minutes later."

ARTICLE

Gloss Magazine

Press

Radio, TV and podcasts

"Some crime and spy fiction is appalling, ludicrously awful at points. Women are victims, there for their looks, to be used and abused. I met female spies and saw none of them on the pages of those books. So, I did something about it."

"The new queen of spy fiction: how Ava Glass went from murder reporting to the bestseller list."

"Being a crime reporter was a great education about all aspects of human nature. I learnt to comport myself so that I could become invisible.... being able to disappear into a room can be a marvellous thing."

"Emma is loosely based on the first spy I ever met. The series is my imagining of what it would be like to be her. There's a hint of loneliness in that life because nobody knows who you really are, and I wanted to capture that."

"When I worked with spies, at least half were women. It suits the spy agencies for people not to know this, because you’re much more easily fooled if you underestimate a woman’s ability to be a spy. It was really important to me to write what I saw and fill in that gap."

"I met female spies all the time but I never see them in books and I rarely see them on television – certainly not as equal and capable spies as men. That bewilders me as the reality is they are all those things."

"I read every book that is considered a great spy novel and not one of them was by a woman or about a woman, not a single one, and the female characters in them were generally unrecognisable as women..."

"If I was choosing a spy I’d send a woman and an older woman at that, because they tend to be ignored and that makes them incredibly useful."

"I've been working as a crime novelist for decades now, and as a journalist have investigated hundreds of brutal murders and visited countless grisly crime scenes. But there are some stories that stick with you."

"If you're a spy, you want to walk into a room and everybody’s eyes just sort of skim across you. So you can’t be too perfect or too imperfect. There can’t be anything terribly memorable about you. You just want to look like everybody else.”

"There have been many female spies, from the very beginning. One reason women make such good spies is because men underestimate them so much, they never suspect."

"While there’s an element of Bondian fantasy to Emma’s ingenuity, she’s also flawed. When things blow up, she gets hurt. I hope she feels real to people. She feels real to me."

"I do think the key to caring what happens, even if a book has the greatest plot ever written, is character. To me, Emma Makepeace is almost a real person. I can see her in my mind. I can hear her voice in my head. I know so much about her childhood, her background and where she lives."

"In my experience, no matter how far you travel, you can't escape yourself. The past tags along. No matter how hard you try to leave it behind, it always packs itself in your luggage."

"I remember everything about the first corpse I saw. His striped shirt. His brown belt. Khaki trousers. No shoes. It was 95 degrees and the smell was indescribable. And on that day I made myself a promise that I would not throw up. I had to get tough to do the job."

"Working with MI5 gave me a window into their world. I learned how dangerous it was, how deceptive, and it has fascinated me ever since. I was in counter-terrorism for five years and I have no idea to this day who was a spy and who wasn't."

"The cover copy for this new spy thriller begins, ‘Nothing about Emma Makepeace is real. Not even her name.’ The same could be said for Glass..."

"It’s about listening to your own characters. When you create a character, you give them personality traits which have to stay because we don’t change that much. It’s about remembering what you’ve created and being true to that, even if it screws your plot."

"She was the first spy I ever met and I didn't know she was a spy. She was so plausible and normal, I hadn't the slightest inkling. I had such respect for her. As a journalist, I know you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

"When I was a reporter I felt I could understand the motive of a murder 9 times out of 10. Maybe it was related to anger, drugs, or poverty. But today, we’re seeing so many cases get attention that are wilder and unexplainable."

"I decided to try writing when I was at university. I was studying business, which I didn't love. After watching All The President's Men, I spontaneously switched to the journalism programme. Once I discovered I could write, no one could stop me. My fate was set."

"If you can get a job in the British Government as a cleaner or a coffee shop worker you can melt into a crowd. It's a life of deception on every level."

"Edinburgh through the eyes of a spy novelist... Ava Glass stakes out a city that more than lends itself to tales of espionage."

“In her career in counter-terrorism, Ava Glass observed the dirty side of espionage –but she never saw a shaken martini.”

Temperature Rises: in this short story, Emma Makepeace plays the waiting game.

“Ava Glass looks at some of the wildest, most revelatory nonfiction books about espionage and the life of spies.”

“On Her Shelf: 'Alias Emma' author on British intelligence, the spy who fooled her and the best thriller she’s read lately.”

"Former British Intelligence worker Ava Glass offers a sneak peek into her writing life."

Making A Spy: in this short story, Emma Makepeace faces the ultimate test of her mettle.

"Ava Glass on drawing inspiration from real spies, and the very real spy war being waged just out of our view.."

"Author Ava Glass tells us how the inspiration for her new novel, The Traitor, comes from real life."

"An extract from The Traitor by Ava Glass."

"Ava Glass on drawing inspiration from real spies and the truth being stranger than fiction..."

"In recent years Britain has seen an attempted assassination of ex-Russian spies with a deadly nerve agent in a leafy rural town, double-agents working in embassies, a trio of Russian spies posing as normal workers… Ava Glass talks about how real spies inspired her novels."

"You don't have to be a billionaire to enjoy a super yacht experience – even if it's only for a few days, writes author Ava Glass."

"You may well have met a spy at some point in your life...and you would never know that you’d been met, identified, and assessed in a quick, efficient encounter that you could barely remember ten minutes later."

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