Simon Gervais: On Adding a New Series Into a Legacy Thriller Universe

Simon Gervais was born in Montréal, Québec. He joined the Canadian military as an infantry officer. In 2001, he was recruited by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, where he first worked as drug investigator. Later he was assigned to antiterrorism, which took him to several European countries and the Middle East. In 2009, he became a close-protection specialist tasked with guarding foreign heads of state visiting Canada.

Simon is the author of the Clayton White series—The Last Protector, and The Last Sentinel—and the Pierce Hunt series—Hunt Them Down, Trained to Hunt, and Time to Hunt—among others. Find him on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

In this post, Simon discusses the experience of writing his new thriller novel, Robert Ludlum’s The Blackbriar Genesis, his advice for writers, and more!

Name: Simon Gervais
Literary agent: Eric Myers at Myers Literary Management
Book title: Robert Ludlum’s The Blackbriar Genesis
Publisher: Putnam
Release date: October 18, 2022
Genre/category: Thriller (Espionage, military)
Previous titles: Clayton White series (The Last Protector, The Last Sentinel, and The Last Guardian); The Pierce Hunt series (Hunt Them Down, Trained To Hunt, and Time To Hunt); The Mike Walton series (The Thin Black Line, A Long Gray Line, A Red Dotted Line, and A Thick Crimson Line)
Elevator pitch for the book: What if a highly trained deep cover Treadstone asset was assassinated in a country in which he had no reason to be? Who would you send to investigate the murder of a man who doesn’t exist? Helen Jouvert and Donovan Wade—two operatives from the newly established counterespionage unit Blackbriar—are tasked to find out what really happened to the Treadstone asset. As they travel to Europe looking for clues, their investigation will take them deeper into the world of conspiracy and fake news than they ever expected.

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It takes me approximately five months to write a book, so when I finished writing The Last Protector in January 2021—and knowing that Thomas & Mercer could only publish one Simon Gervais title per year—I reached out to Tom Colgan at Penguin Random House to see if we could maybe collaborate on a project. I’ve known Tom for years through mutual friends and I have an immense respect for him. I knew that with Don Bentley and Marc Cameron writing the Tom Clancy books, and Joshua Hood and Brian Freeman—all good friends of mine—writing the Robert Ludlum books, he had all the writers he needed.

Within hours of me sending the email, Tom replied letting me know he couldn’t believe I had reached out to him on that day because something had just come up the day before and he was about to reach out to me to see if I was interested. A few months later a book deal was signed. I have to say that writing for the Robert Ludlum estate is great fun.

I wrote a 4,000-word synopsis in April 2021 and submitted to Tom and the Ludlum estate for comments and approval. They loved it. Although they greenlighted the project, I couldn’t start writing the book right away since I was busy with The Last Sentinel—the second book of my Clayton White series—at the time. I started to work on The Blackbriar Genesis in November and submitted to Tom on April 1, 2022.

Of course! I was surprised at how much flexibility Tom and the Ludlum estate gave me to write The Blackbriar Genesis. Writing in the Jason Bourne universe isn’t for the faint of heart, and I expected they would look over my shoulder to make sure I didn’t screw it up. But they didn’t. They gave me the latitude I needed. And it worked.

My publicist at Putman recently forwarded me the Publishers Weekly and Kirkus reviews, and I’m thrilled to share with you that they loved the book. I hope the readers will feel the same way.

The process is somewhat different than what I’m used to with Thomas & Mercer since the Ludlum estate has to approve the book before it makes it any further. So, not only do I need to please Tom, I also need to make sure that the estate will love the book.

Another difference between the books I write for Thomas & Mercer and the books I write for the Ludlum estate is that the Ludlum books are much longer. I’m used to writing 70,000- to 75,000-word thrillers, so writing a 100,000+-word book was definitely a challenge for me, but I thoroughly enjoyed the process. In fact, I can’t wait to get started on Blackbriar 2.

I hope the readers will feel that the Blackbriar series is a positive addition to the Jason Bourne universe the same way the Treadstone series did.

Steve Berry once told me that to be successful in this business a writer needs 3 things:

1. Talent. You need to work for this one. Reading a lot is in my opinion the best way to become a good writer.

2. Contacts within the industry. This one is much easier, but you need to get out of your house. Make sure to attend conferences, and don’t be shy to introduce yourself! Be nice, polite, and respectful, and people will remember you.

3. Luck. This one is hard and sometimes unfair. You might have written an excellent book that would have been otherwise acquired, but if a book too similar to yours was recently acquired by your dream publisher, there’s a chance they’ll pass on it. You need the right book at the right time.

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