Douglas Thompson

Author, Broadcaster, International Journalist

Douglas Thompson is the author of many non-fiction books covering an eclectic mix of subjects from major Hollywood biographies to revelatory collaborations about remarkable people and events.

The author, broadcaster and international journalist, is a regular contributor to major newspapers and magazines worldwide.

In The Spotlight

Back from the Dead: The Untold Story
of the 7/7 Bombings

On the eve of the 20th anniversary of a day that changed Britain, comes the extraordinary, never-before-revealed story of 7/7’s most injured victim. A tale of heroism, success, failure, heartbreak, rage and redemption

Dan Biddle was a construction site manager who was a 19-stone, 6ft 4in tall, semi-professional football goalkeeper, until he got on the second carriage of a Tube train at Liverpool Street station in 2005.

On that day, July 7th, in a moment of someone else’s madness, he lost all meaning to his existence along with both his legs, his left eye, his spleen and all hearing in his left ear.

His body and mind were devastated during the worst single terrorist atrocity on British soil. And for years living was a fate worse than death.

It took ten seconds to disassemble him. It’s taken 20 years for him to find the inner peace and brutal honesty to reveal his daily battle and to go on surviving.

Back From The Dead is Dan’s against-the-odds story and his tale of triumph and joy will astonish. His battle with bureaucracy and despair will anger and shock. The extraordinary love story that keeps him alive will inspire.

In the past 15 years while dealing with his injuries he has become an advocate for the disabled and a vocal campaigner giving talks and presentations to Government and local authorities on what more can be done to help the physically disadvantaged.

“They say cats have nine lives so I’ve been giving them a bit of a run. I’ve died three times on an operating table and had the same number of goes at killing myself. Luckily, the doctors were brilliant at saving my life and I was crap at ending it.”

Mirror Books Managing Director Fergus McKenna said: “7/7 is a date that few British people will ever forget. But for Dan Biddle it wasn’t a far-away tragedy or even something that happened in his city, he was at the very epicentre of the attack. To come through and not only survive the physical injuries of that day but also the emotional scars is nothing short of incredible. To then use his own experience to help others shows just what a remarkable human being Dan really is.”

Available Now

Reckless: Sex, Lies and JFK

Drawing on new interviews and previously hidden police and intelligence files, Reckless finally reveals the full corruption of America’s Camelot.

‘Reads like James Ellroy’– Daily Telegraph

‘JFK didn’t hesitate to employ deception, espionage and covert action’ – Timothy Naftali, Wall Street Journal

John F. Kennedy’s life is promoted by sentimental and careless myth-makers as pure legend. But a sinister shadow lies across it.

His death was such a shocking event that the vivid memory of his assassination still blinds us to much of what went before. When it is recalled, it is almost always seen through the prism of that single, terrible day in Dallas, obscuring the dark corners of his time and government.

For JFK, power was soundbites over policy, the White House a fairytale castle, and the President manifested as a hypersexualised movie star. As with Hollywood, the willing suspension of belief was required.

Reality imposes no such limits.

Drawing on essential new material derived from decades-long investigations, Detective Mike Rothmiller and Douglas Thompson shatter the secrets and lies with a revelatory and dramatic true-life thriller focusing on JFK and Robert F. Kennedy, both before and after they bought the White House.

All the usual suspects, from FBI titan J. Edgar Hoover and billionaire Howard Hughes to CIA rogue agents and Mob hitmen appear in a narrative which sweeps from wartime London to the salons of Washington, from the bedrooms of Hollywood to the torture chambers and jungles of central America, and on to revolutionary Cuba and the tragic, bloody political carousel of Vietnam.

Latest Release

Inside Out - The Extraordinary Legacy of April Ashley

‘April Ashley was born, aged twenty-five, on 12 May 1960. It was a difficult birth at the Clinique du Parc on rue Lapébie, a back street running parallel to the admired avenue d’Amade in Casablanca, on a day when the Moroccan sunshine was behaving the way the guidebooks say it should . . .’

Through her own – often bloody-minded – determination and the medical skill of others, April Ashley became the woman she had always believed herself to be.

And for half a dozen decades she soared around, over and above momentous and turbulent times, difficult, and changing times when, finally, who you wanted to be and who you could be became the cultural topic of the day.

She overcame opprobrium and penury and became renowned and celebrated for one specific achievement: being April Ashley.

This raw, moving and funny memoir reveals April’s life as never before.

Read in PDF format

Coming Soon in 2024

As seen on...

Christine Keeler’s son Seymour is campaigning to have his mother’s criminal conviction for perjury overturned. Details by clicking the link below.

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Spybrary @spybrary ·

18 Feb

Please join me in wishing Len Deighton a very happy birthday. He was born on this day in 1929!

What’s your favourite Deighton read?

Got to be Berlin Game for me.

#LenDeighton

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Robbie Millen @robbietimes ·

18 Feb

Yes! New Mick Herron thriller, Clown Town, out in September. The ninth in the Slough House series

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I.S. Berry | THE PEACOCK AND THE SPARROW @isberryauthor ·

17 Feb

So excited to read this advance copy of @paulvidich's THE POET'S GAME, about a #CIA spy uncovering a Russian plot on the US president. (& that cover!) Vidich is one of the top spy novelists writing today, in my opinion. Hits shelves 5/6/25. @AAKnopf