Matthew Quirk doesn’t simply write spy thrillers. To the extent he can, he lives them first – in the case of Dead Man Switch, going through SERE (survival, evasion, resistance, and escape) training in Los Angeles. The final-day exercise saw him kidnapped, left hooded and handcuffed in the back of van, and tasked with escaping and evading the Marines and special forces veterans trying to hunt him down.

Quirk, a former reporter for The Atlantic, discusses his much-anticipated latest novel, the intensive research that went into it, and the current events that make its story relevant. Dead Man Switch revolves around the systematic elimination of America’s most elite special operations soldiers and the efforts of a legendary fellow member of their unit, now retired, to stop the killings and a much larger-scale strike.