At primary school, aeons before I trained as a journalist, I absorbed the golden rule of writing — all writing. My teacher was Mary Stewart, queen of the literary romantic thriller, who for a time in the mid-20th century was one of the most successful authors in the world. Her opening lines were things of wonder. after a lifetime’s gap was to be drawn once again, irresistibly, back into a breathless adventure I’d once shared. “The whole affair began so very quietly,” begins Stewart’s heroine, as if confiding

Source: The Times September 02, 2020 16:07 UTC