How do you go about writing a book about one of the most powerful dynasties  on earth?

That's the challenge special guest Russ Baker faced when he first  considered writing about the Bush family; one which encompasses two U.S.  Senators, one Supreme Court Justice, two Governors, two Presidents and  innumerable bankers and businessmen. The book took five years to write and is a  meticulous piece of research (there are over a thousand footnotes).

According to the late Gore Vidal, Family  of Secrets is "one of the most important books of the past ten years". Dan  Rather - who you can hear right here on Radio Litopia's Debriefer show - called  it "a tour de force. " "It's made me rethink", he says, "even those events I  witnessed with my own eyes".

You'll recognize him as one of Britain's leading thriller writers, author of  the multi-million seller A  Quiet Belief In Angels and ten other award-winner novels. But you may  not know much about the extraordinary personal story of tonight's guest  R.J. Ellory - a life that is  just as thrilling and moving as anything in his bestsellers.

Inspiring, revealing and searingly honest... we think tonight's show is quite  simply one of our best.

Where do your most brilliant ideas come from? What's the most extreme thing  you've done when researching your book? What's the worst book you've ever  bought? Litopia After Dark this week begins to wind down for the summer holidays  with a writers' quiz. It all gets completely out of hand as the panelists give  each other marks and the bickering reaches a crescendo as they try to outdo each  other in the race to the finish line... tune in to see who wins.

Geoff Dyer is the consummate writer’s writer: winner of the Somerset Maugham  Prize, the US National Book Critics Circle Award the E. M. Forster Award, and  more. The Daily Telegraph newspaper has called him “the best living writer in  Britain”. Zadie Smith believes he is “a national treasure.”

This is a specially extended Litopia After Dark - we hope you enjoy this  opportunity to get to know one of the finest writers in the world today.

At the age of 43, a few weeks after he secured British citizenship, former  KGB and FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko was murdered: the world's first victim  of polonium 210 poisoning.  The Litvinenko killing revealed that London has  quietly become not only the single greatest centre of Russian capital outside  Moscow, but also a turbulent seat of Russian opposition.

Our special guest tonight is Alan Cowell, senior correspondent for the  New York Times, based in London and Paris.  Few people know more about this  extraordinary subject than Alan; his book  “The  Terminal Spy” is the definitive work on the topic, and he continues  to report on the story as it unfolds for NYTimes.com.

Alan typifies old-school journalism at its best.  He was the last Reuters  correspondent to file dispatches by carrier pigeon, and has covered stories in  over 90 countries.  He won a George Polk Award for his coverage of the  broadening turmoil in South Africa that led to the end of apartheid.  He was  expelled from the country by the government of P.W. Botha in early 1987.

Since then, he has headed The New York Times’s bureaus in Greece, Egypt,  Italy, Germany and London, where he the Nathaniel Nash Award.

Alan has written three other books: an African memoir, “Killing  the Wizards”; and two novels, “A  Walking Guide” and its sequel, “The  Paris Correspondent”, which deals in part with the challenges of the new  digital era in news gathering and reporting.

It was supposed to be "the war that will end war" - according to the  misplaced optimism of British author H.G. Wells, and countless others like him  who cheerfully expected "our boys" to be home by Christmas 1914.   Involving all  the world's great powers, more than 70 million combatants, and over 9 million  fatalities, it became one of the largest wars in history.

And perhaps most tragically, those who died in the trenches, or on the shores  of Gallipoli, had no inkling of the underlying causes, quarrels and agendas for  which they were to sacrifice their lives.  While its origins are still hotly  debated by historians, this is no mere academic discussion.  As you'll hear in  tonight's totally engrossing show, the legacy of the Great War is still very  much with us today - setting the agenda for many of the current events in the  Middle East and beyond.

Our special guest is acclaimed historian Professor Sean McMeekin,  whose radical and assiduous scholarship has shed much new light on this  much-misunderstood conflict. Sean's books include The  Berlin-Baghdad Express: The Ottoman Empire and Germany's Bid for World  Power,  The  Russian Origins of the First World War,  and the forthcoming July  1914: Countdown to War.

We've got a lovely Easter chocolate-box full of naughtiness for you this  week!  All tied up in a saucy bow.  Choose from a tempting selection of  fillings, including:

The entirely wonderful, not to say intrepid, Kari Herbert is back with  us: her new book Polar  Wives tells the stories of the remarkable women behind the world's most  daring explorers - a great read if the Easter weather takes a turn for the  worse.  And should you accidentally over-indulge yourself with holiday treats,  don't panic - the hilarious and witty  Jane Wenham-Jones is  ready and waiting with 100  Ways to Fight the Flab – The Wannabe Guide to a Better Bottom.

British Prime Minister David Cameron and his Chancellor George Osborne  are  currently enforcing "savage" spending cuts that, in Cameron's own words, "will  change our whole way of life". Why? What have the British people done  to deserve this punishment?

Tonight's guest, Professor  L. Randall Wray, has got some very revealing answers. If you want to  know how we got in this mess - listen to this show. If you want to know  what's going to happen next - listen to this show. And if you want to  know what we might be able to do about it... you know what to do. This is one of  our very best - and most important - shows.  Please: tell all your friends about  it.

It's not often we have a real-life spy as our special guest on LAD - but  tonight, stepping out of the shadows and into our spotlight is special guest  Major David Thorp - a man who has spent his entire life in signals  intelligence (SIGINT)... from the Cold War to the Falklands, and everything  in-between.

SIGINT is one of the least-known but most important aspects of battlefield  and peacetime intelligence gathering.  David's book, The  Silent Listener - Falklands 1982: The Inside Story of British Electronic  Surveillance and Intel Controversies, ignited a firestorm of controversy  when it was published... and tonight we get our teeth into his insider's  revelations about the sinking of the Belgrano and much more besides.

"Behind the phony tinsel of Hollywood" quipped Oscar Levant,  lies the real  tinsel".  Maybe true, but for our guest tonight, action actress Spice Williams-Crosby,  the bruises, broken ribs and concussions are real enough.  Spice has Hollywood  in her DNA; you've seen her in motion pictures such as Star Trek, From  Dusk Till Dawn,  and A Simple Plan and on countless television  dramas, including Scrubs, Roseanne and Buffy the Vampire  Slayer.  Spice has crashed cars, dove through glass windows, taken stair  falls, executed 30-foot ratchets, 50-foot high falls, and hung from helicopters  350 feet above the ground.  Oh, and wrestled Jim Carrey, too.

This is the first time we've had a genuine Klingon on the show -  Heghlu'meH QaQ jajvam!