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Luke McCallin

Goodreads Author

Born

in The United Kingdom

Website

http://lukemccallin.com/

Twitter

mccallinluke

Genre

Mystery

Member Since

June 2014

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Luke McCallin was born in Oxford, grew up around the world and has worked with the United Nations as a humanitarian relief worker and peacekeeper in the Caucasus, the Sahel, and the Balkans. His experiences have driven his writing, in which he explores what happens to normal people--those stricken by conflict, by disaster--when they are put under abnormal pressures.

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What’s the best thing about being a writer?

Luke McCallin It’s when your characters begin to take shape and, eventually, become creations. You start with one or two things—maybe a name, a description, an emot…moreIt’s when your characters begin to take shape and, eventually, become creations. You start with one or two things—maybe a name, a description, an emotion, an impression, a place, a time—and then bit by bit they come to life. My own character, Captain Gregor Reinhardt, literally walked into my dreams one night, and he sat there, patiently, for a long while thereafter. I knew a couple of things about him. He was a lonely man. He was a good detective. He was a German. But why was he lonely? How did he become a good detective? Why did I imagine him German? You start to answer these questions, and each answer leads to more questions and more answers, until you have a ‘character’.

The freedom to invent, to explore, to imagine. Inviting others into your world, the pleasure you take in their joy of it. All these things, and more, are true.(less)

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Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Luke McCallin I spent six years working in Bosnia, and you can’t live there, or in Sarajevo, for long without it seeping into you. As much as it’s an overused analo…moreI spent six years working in Bosnia, and you can’t live there, or in Sarajevo, for long without it seeping into you. As much as it’s an overused analogy, Bosnia really is a historical and cultural crossroads, and it’s so contested. It defies any simple explanation, just like the finest puzzle or book or question. No matter the need to reduce and simplify it, there’s no one way to read it or play it, and a place and time like that gives you so many options as an author, for drama, action, reflection, for asking big questions and trying out the answers to them.

I was a political advisor to the United Nations mission, mandated to reform the country’s police forces and judiciary. I spent a lot of time with people from all walks of Bosnian life. Not just policemen and judges and lawyers, but mayors and town councilors, with priests and imams, with refugees and people still living in ruins, with war criminals and those who survived them, with those who lived the war and those who fled from it, with women holding families together, and men who had fallen adrift of life. I began to build up a collage in my mind. I kept wondering, asking myself, what would I have done in their place, and I began weaving that human and historical tapestry, which is one of the most complex and fascinating you can imagine, into my books, and into another time, that of the Second World War.

Out of all that, came the idea for The Pale House of how, too often, the guilty escape justice…(less)

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Luke McCallin’s books

Average rating: 4.1 · 7,119 ratings · 580 reviews · 6 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Man From Berlin (Gregor Reinhardt, #1) 3.97 avg rating — 3,173 ratings — published 2013 — 26 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Pale House (Gregor Reinhardt, #2) 4.13 avg rating — 1,849 ratings — published 2014 — 21 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Ashes of Berlin (Gregor Reinhardt #3) 4.27 avg rating — 1,698 ratings — published 2016 — 22 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	From a Dark Horizon (Gregor Reinhardt, #4) 4.32 avg rating — 389 ratings — published 2021 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Blood and Scales by Victoria Escobar (Goodreads Author), Bobbie Palmer (Goodreads Author), Allana Kephart (Goodreads Author) 4.67 avg rating — 9 ratings — published 2015 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	What the World is Reading Summer 2013 by Jack Wolf, Jean Zimmerman (Goodreads Author), David R. Gillham (Goodreads Author) liked it 3.00 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 2013	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Luke McCallin…

Series by Luke McCallin

Gregor Reinhardt (4 books)
by

Luke McCallin (Goodreads Author)

4.10 avg rating — 7,107 ratings

Luke is Currently Reading

Luke McCallin is currently reading

The Kindly Ones

by Jonathan Littell

bookshelves: currently-reading

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Jun 16, 2014 01:24AM

Quotes by Luke McCallin (?)

“You talk to me of choices?’ said Reinhardt. ‘I only know that the choices life makes you take strip away the person we wanted to be. Builds us up into something we never wanted. Until you look back on life, and you see that the track of your life is a scar that hides what might have been.”
― Luke McCallin, The Man from Berlin

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“The two of them headed over the narrow road and away from Vukic’s house. The houses up here were beautiful,”
― Luke McCallin, The Man From Berlin

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“ablutions, washed and showered in the echoing space of the communal bathrooms with a hundred other men, then made his way”
― Luke McCallin, The Pale House

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See all Luke McCallin's quotes »

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