Adrian Cowderoy writes contemporary espionage fiction about pressure, uncertainty and hidden systems.
He began drafting novels decades ago but found his fictional territory while working at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, where he helped develop intelligence-related databases. The experience gave him an informed outsider’s view of the processes, language and institutional pressures around modern intelligence, without placing him inside the government intelligence establishment or giving him access to its secrets.
His professional background includes business analysis, managing high-risk technology projects, and co-founding an AI company specialising in talent intelligence. Those experiences shaped his interest in what people become when events move faster than their assumptions, and choices made under pressure carry lasting consequences.
His novel Silent Shift introduces Tina Wilde, a junior MI6 analyst with an unusual instinct for acting before certainty exists. It will appeal to readers of Damascus Station and Charles Cumming, and to those drawn to the moral and institutional consequences of le Carré.
He is now developing further novels in the Tina Wilde series, alongside related fiction exploring intelligence, judgment and hidden systems.
Adrian lives in a cottage on the edge of Reading, England, surrounded by music, books, bicycles and greenery.
Photograph: Matilda Cowderoy, aged 5.
