The book I am currently reading Front Row at the Trump Show by Jonathan Karl. My country is sailing through very rough seas at the moment. This book, by a senior ABC political correspondent who has reported on Trump for years, is an exhaustively researched, objectively reported and balanced account of what’s going on at the top and what the consequences are on the ground. It’s everything that journalism should be. It is not, as some claim, fake news. The book that changed my life When I read From Russia, With Love by Ian Fleming at a young age, I decided that I wanted to be a writer of popular suspense fiction. I thought, in youthful hubris: I can do that – maybe not right away and maybe not as well, but the book gave me two things: inspiration to write and a template for telling a story that moved as fast as the Orient Express, in a straightforward, wry and punchy style. I try to keep that in mind every time I sit down at the keyboard. The book I wish I’d written Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is a perfectly executed incarnation of some of the most important themes in literature: family, courage, honesty, societal divides, politics and – inescapable in the US – race. That bloated sentence makes the book sound like a leaden treatise, but no, the author has lower-cased those abstractions and hung them subtly on the frame of a moving and fast-paced legal thriller. Not only that, she’s populated the whole shebang with some of the most unforgettable characters in fiction. The book that had the greatest influence on my writing The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow. My favourite literary writer, Bellow has penned a towering Bildungsroman with this book. It tells the story of the eponymous protagonist as he shoulders his way from troubled youth to manhood, where he achieves a kind of stability and peace, which, though imperfect, will resonate with us all. Why do I, who, let’s face it, will probably not be up for a Booker in the near future, cite a Nobel laureate as an influence? Because Bellow tells his compelling, brawny story in breathtakingly stylish prose. He taught me to treat the way words sound as respectfully as the meaning they convey. The book I think is most underrated All Shot Up by Chester Himes. Himes, who did not have a pleasant experience as an African American in the US, moved to Europe, where he wrote most of his books. He was a master of all the genres he tackled, but I chose one of his Harlem detective series, featuring NYPD investigators Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones. All Shot Up, which one rarely hears of, is a classic noir in the Elmore Leonard meets Ed McBain mould. The book that changed my mind I have always been a plot-driven author; my novels have three, sometimes four intersecting stories, all of which end in twists; I’ve tended to focus on those pyrotechnics and neglected my characters. When I read A Perfect Spy by John le Carré I found myself utterly engaged with the people he had created, independent of the machinations of the story. I decided that, while I will never neglect my mission to give readers rollercoaster plots, I now concentrate equally hard on creating living, breathing characters we feel that we actually know and care about (as well as, of course, despise and fear). The last book that made me cry The Shipping News by Annie Proulx. I reread this novel and was as moved as the first time I devoured it, years ago. Proulx is a stylist like no other. The last book that made me laugh Wobble to Death by Peter Lovesey – a delightful mystery about murder at a six-day foot race in the Royal Agricultural Hall in Islington, north London, with his series protagonists Detective Sergeant Cribb and his assistant Constable Thackeray on the case. As someone who creates plot twist for a living, I was sure I’d nailed the baddie. Nope. I got it completely wrong. Hence, the admiring guffaw. The book I couldn’t finish The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I’m clearly in the minority but I found it grim, digressive and obvious. Sorry, fans. The book I’m most ashamed not to have read What’s the statute of limitations for things like this? I threw together an essay in high school on Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee and photographer Walker Evans, without actually having read it. I used reviews and jacket copy and some quick skimming. The A grade that I received stung more than if I’d been called out for the offence. The book I give as a gift For adults: any collection of Robert Frost poems. For children: The Hobbit. The book I’d most like to be remembered for Garden of Beasts. This is my thriller, winner of the Steel Dagger from CWA, about a hitman traveling to Berlin in 1936, undercover with the Olympics. His mission is to assassinate a (fictional) aide helping Hitler rearm. It took me two years to write and, while it’s a typical novel of mine – fast-paced and twisty – it’s also a study of institutionalised evil and a society seduced by a madman. My comfort read Lord of the Rings. I know I can always find solace in Middle-earth and in Tolkien’s formidable imagination. The combination of his wielding the English language like a … well, wizard’s staff, and his creating languages from whole cloth is utter popcorn for me. • The Goodbye Man by Jeffery Deaver is published by HarperCollins (£16.99). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.