DAVID JARVIS chats to Paul Burke about his new spy thriller, The Green Feathers, CHOGM, Five Eyes, Mike Kingdom, the zeitgeist and the lighter touch.

The Green Feathers When a butterfly flaps its wings in the Caribbean, it causes storms in Europe.
The British King and Prime Minister have arrived in Georgetown, Guyana, along with the leaders of the other fifty-five countries in the Commonwealth, for its biennial meeting. Two shots ring out causing panic on the steps of the Mahaica Convention Centre.
The previous month, Tina Persad, an MI6 agent with Caribbean experience, had been sent to find out whether rumoured threats to the meeting were real or not. Then days before it was due to start, she had disappeared without trace.
Michaela ‘Mike’ Kingdom, a CIA analyst in London, may have been the last person to see her alive when they had a drink together in The Green Feathers. With Tina missing, Mike makes it her mission to find her friend, despite warnings not to get involved.
The butterfly may have already flapped its wings, but can Mike find Tina before the Heavens open?

David Jarvis went to art college in the 1970s before setting up an international planning practice, which he ran successfully for forty years. This took him around the world from Trinidad to Croatia and from France to Saudi Arabia.His canvases just got bigger and bigger. He has now retired to Wiltshire to write and drink wine, not necessarily in that order.

Recommend Carl Hiaasen, Kyril Bonfiglioli (Mordecai)

Paul Burke edits Aspects of Crime Magazine and writes for Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover and the European Literature Network, Punk Noir Magazine (fiction contribution). He is also a CWA Historical Dagger Judge 2025. His first book An Encyclopedia of  Spy Fiction will be out 2026.

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