"No Perfect Heroes": Paddy Ashdown to publish a thriller

In the course of a long and interesting interview with the East Anglian Daily Times, the former Lib Dem leader reveals something new:

Paddy Ashdown will be 70 a couple of months into 2011. He’s packed more into those years than most of us would manage in four or five lifetimes. Does he have any burning ambitions left?

He rattles them off. “My garden, my grandchildren, my next book. I’ve just done my seventh book – off to the publisher now. (It’s called No Perfect Heroes.) It’s a thriller. It’s got a little bit of Bosnia in it, a lot of Islam, a great deal of spying, a very great deal of Special Forces and a little bit of sex!”

Er . . . not based on your life, is it?

“No, it’s absolutely not based on my life! Somebody as different from me as you can get, but obviously my experiences come into it and add colour here and there. But absolutely not autobiographical!”

Well, it was new to me, but in fact Paddy also mentioned this new book to the Western Morning News last month.