£125 million. When you have that much money, you do not need to explain anything. Lovely to see you both as well as adele. Thank you very much indeed. That is it for us as our will. Coming up next it is time for meet the author. The thriller writer David Baldacci has enjoyed the kind of success most authors can only dream about. His first book, Absolute Power, became a bestseller and it was turned into a film, starring and directed by clint eastwood. David baldacci has gone on to write 30 novels, which have sold more than 100 million copies around the world. His latest is called the fix and its his third book about the detective amos decker, who witnesses a seemingly senseless and random murder outside the headquarters of the fbi, in washington, dc. David baldacci, id like to start, if i may, by rewinding the clock back to your childhood, when your mother gave you a notebook in which to write stories. Had you always wanted to be a writer . Well, i was a big reader back then. I was probably about seven or eight years old. When i was a kid, i never shut up. I was telling tall tales all the time, usually to get myself out of trouble with School Officials and other parents. And my mom came and brought me a journal. And she said, honey, you know, some of the stuff youve been talking about, why dont you try writing it down . So my pen hit the paper and i was kind of like, this epiphanyjust went off in my head. I can take my imagination, put it down on paper, and people can read what im thinking about. This is so cool. And years went by and i went back to my mom and i said, thank you for such a gift, mom, for this, it changed my life. And she said, well, im so glad it worked out for you but, quite frankly, i just wanted to shut you up you know, because moms need a little peace and quiet. I will always love you, but you just never stop talking. So, there you go, it worked out in the end. It worked out in the end, but in the interim, you became a lawyer. You didnt become a writer. So how did that happen . Well, for, like, 15 years, i wrote Short Stories only, and you cant make a living selling Short Stories. Maybe you could if you were john updike orjohn irving, but not David Baldacci, so i never even got paid for when i sold a story. They would give me a bunch of free copies of the magazine and said that would be enough in payment. So i became a lawyer and i did very well. I practised for ten years from washington, writing the whole time. High school, college, law school, ten years of practising law. I wrote Short Stories, novellas, screenplays and then finally novels. And Absolute Power just really was the Turning Point for me. And then you were able to commit to it full time. Fast forward now dozens of novels later to your latest novel, the fix, and this tells the Story Of A Man who shoots a woman outside the Fbi Headquarters and then turns the gun on himself. So its a whydunnit, rather than a whodunnit. What inspired the story . Well, this is the third instalment of My Amos Decker series. Hes your detective. He is. We first saw him in memory man. And he has a perfect memory, hyperthymesia, because of a brain trauma that he suffered. And he is the most unlikeliest of heroes. He is not your knight in white shining armour. He is a big, sloppy, obese guy who has no personal skills, ticks everybody off, nobody really gets along with him. And i thought, yeah, thatd be a great series guy people will love him. But they do. And his motivation is simple. He wants to find out the truth, no matter where it takes him. And so he looks at the scene. He was a witness to this crime. He was walking down the street and the guy pulls out a gun, shoots a woman, then turns the gun on himself. And he keeps going back to that scene. Its very hitchcockian. Its a small stage. He keeps going back, his mental frames flipping through. Did he really see what he thought he saw . And so constantly, throughout the entire novel, the reader over his shoulder going back and looking at that one scene. I wanted to make it really claustrophobic, you know. I wanted people to be hammered with that scene over and over again. Because, look, as a lawyer, i know that eyewitness accounts are totally unreliable. People cant remember anything they saw. Or even if they do remember it, its all wrong. As you say, amos decker isnt your typical hero. What appeals to you so much about him . So many of my other characters are kind of like, you know, theyre fit and well trained and, you know, theyre sort of classical heroes, 0k . As an writer, i think if you dont expand and challenge yourself, you wither on the vine. So i wanted to write a character totally different from anything ive written before. Amos decker fit that bill. I mean, he is not your typical hero. And my wife will say, yeah, i can understand why you channel him so easily, cos youre that too what does that tell us about you . I was very struck by how topical the book is. The murder turns into an issue of national security. You also deal with isis, cyber hacking, cyber security. How important is that to you, to make the book feel current . Plausibility, im bound by plausibility. Fortunately for me, it seems like these days, anything is possible. So i can write about anything and people will say, yeah, i think i read that in a newspaper last week. So for me, its to take life as we know it now. And im very curious about the world. I try to Read Everything i can possibly read. So take life as it is now and try to extrapolate it out, so i can say, ok, what is it gonna be like in the near future . And so i can sort of push the envelope and see whats coming down the road. I had an intelligence guy one time tell me. Id written a scene and i thought it was gonna be over the top, too much. I said, read this, let me know if i need to pull it back. He said, i dont have to read it. I said, no, just read it and let me know if its too much. He goes, i dont have to read it. I said, why not . He said, because if you can imagine it, weve already done it. Really . Thats chilling. And its interesting you say you had a conversation with an intelligence guy, because i know you talk to members of the fbi and the secret service, dont you . Yeah. What kind of things do they tell you . Its funny, theyre wonderfully helpful, they share a lot of information. Sometimes, theyll say, im gonna tell you this, but can it never end up in a book . And it never does, cos i do play fair. So theyve got a lot of stuff that, you know, i would not want to be them because it must be hard to sleep at night sometimes. I was struck by how meticulously plotted the novel was and i wondered, do you start from the outset knowing exactly whats going to happen, or does the story evolve as youre writing it . It really evolves organically. Ive never known the ending of any book ive sat down to write. Really . so i write myself until the end. Ive always thought that if i knew the ending, i wouldnt be creating a novel, i would be typing to the end, you know, a manuscript, not really writing. So for me, every day is an epiphany. I might sit down in front of the computer and think, er, what am i gonna do today . Oh, my god, 0k, let me just try this. And if it doesnt work, i can always go back, hit the delete key and try something else. So that spontaneity is an integral part of creativity. So for me to plot along an outline that ive thought about before ive even created a character, i mean, how dull and boring would that be . And i think that boringness would come through in the pages. But that must be even more difficult because you sometimes have more than one novel on the go, dont you . You write two, sometimes three novels a year. How do you fit it all in . Yeah, im obsessive about it. This is what i do and its what i love to do. But every day, i get up thinking to myself, its so fortunate that i can tell another story today. Im an eight year old kid, with a piece of paper and a pen, and im just using this in my head and putting it down for people to read. And i tell an aspiring writer, i say, make sure youre in it for the right reasons. If you can live without writing, go do something else, because youre not gonna make it. Because that will get you through all the bad times. Its like bullet proof armour youre putting around yourself, that joy of writing, because no matter what they hit you with, youre gonna keep going. Nonetheless, how difficult is it to keep coming up with different plots and ideas . I think the one attribute a writer needs to have is this non stop curiosity about the world and life, and i certainly am. I just absorb knowledge and information like you wouldnt believe, because i think if you know a lot about a lot of different things, you can bring those disparate elements together and, all of a sudden, youre writing some really unique stories. Writing is not a job, its not a hobby, its not even a passion for me, its a lifestyle. Im sitting here right in the studio, but im also thinking about, you know, im looking around and seeing stuff and ideas are coming to me. Its just part of who i am. How do you relax . Well, you know, i love to write. I relax by writing. I love to read. I love to go out on the water. Im a big boater, i like to do all the watersports and stuff. Itsjust nice, you know, i have a nice family and its a nice life. But at the end of the day, its that book and the pen that draws you back . My wife gave me a journal on christmas day. I tell people, never give a Writer Blank Paper on a major holiday, cos youll never see them for the rest of the day David Baldacci, its been a pleasure to talk to you, thank you. Thank you. Rain in the south west of england. Moving out of the way. Looking to the north to see low cloud to northern and eastern scotland. Quite a bit of cloud for england and wales through the night. Northern ireland, in the countryside, quite chilly first thing in the morning out warming up. This is where the best of the sunshine. Eastern scotland through the central well, a bit of drizzle. Some sunshine and warming up drizzle. Some sunshine and warming up after the chilly start in Northern Ireland. The other side of the pennines at different story with lots of cloud. The wales, midlands and southern england. A bit grey out there. We should see steady improvement through the day and we should see that in the cricket. It will brighten up and we should get some sunshine. The cloud breaking from the north. Eventually some sunshine arriving in southern parts of england. Mid to high teens, up to 21 in the south of Northern Ireland and the south east of wales. More cloud for the football in scotland. We could see a little bit of sunshine over in edinburgh but it will not be that warm. The Onshore Breeze on monday. Eventually we could punch a few holes in the cloud. The best of the sunshine in western areas. A range of temperatures. North east will be struggling at nine 0ar ten. High pressure from greenland. We can expect a good deal of Cloud Across Eastern Parts of the uk. As the wind drops, more sunshine on wednesday boosting the temperatures. West is best over the next few days with most of the sunshine. 0nce best over the next few days with most of the sunshine. Once again, it will be dry. This is bbc news. Our top stories. Designed to undermine democracy. French president ial candidate Emmanuel Macron clams and election hack. 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