Oliver Dowson - Author

01/08/2026

After an enforced break, I'm writing again! My new standalone thriller, Country 199, is set in Panama and London and coming out later this year.

26/11/2025

After months where my life and thought patterns have largely been dedicated to matters medical, I'm finally getting back to writing - as I have always done, for pleasure. The other day, I discovered this article from The Conversation US that perfectly describes my writing philosophy. Well worth a read!

Resilience is often presented as feats of bravery and endurance. But everyday practices like journaling, drafting a text or even writing a to-do list are manifestations of a capacity to adapt.

25/08/2025

A lifetime of globetrotting and close scrapes, but nothing prepared me for my latest adventure: a fall from a safari vehicle in Zambia that left me with a broken hip. Three operations later (with one more to go), I've spent the last two months learning to walk again with crutches—a true blessing and a curse. I'm easing back into writing with a new well of experiences to draw from, and I've written all about life on crutches in my latest post. Check it out and say hi in the comments—I've missed you all!

In June 2025, atthe end of a safari holiday, I fell and broke my hip. Of the many new experiences I've had, walking with crutches has proved frustrating...

22/08/2025

Delighted to have 'Spies on the Silk Road', the third in my Repurposed Spies series, picked as one of The Wishing Shelf's Books of the Month!

01/04/2025

So here I am, sitting in my hidey-hole garden room, writing about real human spies, while all the time that little device that looks like a speaker in the corner is listening to my every word.... or is it?

As the world becomes an ever more dangerous place, it's worth reading this article and considering one's need for discretion...

In the spy world, one of the most effective ways to gather intelligence about someone is by bugging their private space at their home or workplace. That is typically hard to do. Legally, it requires obtaining a search warrant after demonstrating...

31/03/2025

Recently I was thrilled to be interviewed by Hannah Murray for her weekly radio show The Book Show on Talk Radio Europe. We talked about my latest thriller, Spies on the Silk Road, the third in the Repurposed Spies series, and some of my more interesting travel experiences!
Listen on my YouTube channel at at https://bit.ly/treinterview

30/03/2025

Terrible to see the destruction in Myanmar (Burma) - what little news gets through. Back in 2016 when I last visited, the country was calm and opening up to tourism. Since then, military takeover, civil war and now an earthquake. So sad. I thought I'd share some memories of a trip in happier times.

28/03/2025

Proud to have won the Literary Titan book award for Spies on the Silk Road! .... and I can reveal to the reviewer that I'm already progressing well with the fourth book in the Repurposed Spies series, provisionally titled Spies in Shanghai, that I hope to publish later this year.

15/02/2025

Thank you The Wishing Shelf Independent Book Award for making my latest novel - Spies on the Silk Road, the third in the Repurposed Spies series - a finalist in the Adult Fiction category of the 2024 awards!

The Wishing Shelf awards are recognised as probably the best book awards in the UK open to independently-published authors, with hundreds of entrants and hundreds of judges, so this is a real honour.

Spies on the Silk Road is on sale now through all bookshops and online book platforms - and is currently rated at 4.6 stars on Amazon.

07/01/2025

Very happy today to see a new and very kind review for the first book in my 'Repurposed Spies' series, that I published nearly two years ago. The reviewer goes on to say he's now reading the second in the series, Spies on Safari - and there's now a third, Spies on the Silk Road.

More reviews encouraged!