The news that a Russian journalist wasn’t actually shot dead in the Ukraine, but was actually in on a sting against his would be assassins, is one of those cases of real life reading like spy fiction.

It’s also yet another example of how I’ve managed to put particularly relevant plot points into A Death In Didsbury. Without giving too much away, there may be some parallels between the story of Arkady Babchenko, and the truth behind the death in my work in progress.

Every few days, there seems to be a news item that suggests my current project isn’t so much ‘plucked from the headlines’ as predicting them.