Top US crime writer Jeffery Deaver, right, talks to SIMON RITCHIE about plots, projects and the great British ploughman's lunch

"I REALLY need this caffeine," says Jeffery Deaver, as he pours himself a healthy dose of black coffee. He has just flown into Britain from Italy, the last leg of a round-the-world promotional tour and he is feeling the strain.

In little under an hour he is to take the stage at the inaugural Harrogate Crime Writing Festival. Jeffery is the guest of honour, and for many of the fiction fans and fellow authors who have flocked to the town's Majestic Hotel, his talk is the highlight of the four-day event.

Despite the deadline - there's a sound check in 20 minutes - the man who makes a living killing people and scaring the hell out of millions is only too happy to talk to the man from "Yorkshire's big newspaper."

And he is so glad to be in Britain, although he is rather surprised by the mini-heat wave we have been experiencing.

"I love the British climate," he says, with a smile. "I like it dreary, rainy, cold and damp. I suppose it's because I'm three-quarters English, with a bit of Irish and some German. Perhaps that's why when I come over here I always eat ploughman's lunches. When a publisher wants to take me out to the latest restaurant I say 'bloody hell, I want Scotch eggs, I want Branston Pickle, I want pasties."

Sadly, pasties (and ploughman's lunches) were somewhat scarce on his global tour to promote The Vanished Man, his latest novel to feature quadriplegic crime-solver Lincoln Rhyme, hero of five previous bestsellers including The Bone Collector, which was turned into a movie featuring Denzel Washington.

The Vanished Man, which pits Rhyme and his lover detective Amelia Sachs against a psychopathic magician, has more twists and turns than a Chubby Checker record.

"The nature of it is all about sleight of hand and illusion. It's full of surprises. I figured if I was going to go to the extreme it would be in this book," says the softly-spoken Deaver - a man who hates to disappoint his fans.

"On the whole I know what the readers want. They want an exciting book. They don't want digression. They don't want unnecessary gore. They want suspense.

"I write every day. I write eight to ten hours a day, six days a week. Some times more, sometimes less. I'm very, very lucky because I enjoy writing.

"I have different voltage converters for different countries so I can work my computer wherever I go. I have a device which allows me to plug my computer into the cigarette lighter in cars and on planes, so when I'm travelling I can get work done.

"I feel a real responsibility to my readers. I like to give them a book every year and give them the best possible book I can."

Deaver, the author of 18 novels, 20 if you count his first straight-to-paperback works, has almost finished his latest novel, Garden Of Beasts.

It takes place roughly over two days in Berlin 1936, just before the Nazi Olympics.

"It's not a political thriller, although you can't really avoid politics. It's essentially a psychological thriller with police procedure. The games are a motif throughout the book. Some of the characters, such as Jessie Owens the black athlete, are minor characters, as are Hitler, Goebbels, Goering and Himmler.

"It's nearly finished. It's probably in its tenth draft. I'm always rewriting and fine- tuning, as Ernest Hemingway once said: 'There are no great writers, only great rewriters'".

Deaver has also started to outline his next Lincoln Rhyme thriller, which will be published in 2005. "I'll be doing Lincoln Rhyme novels alternate years," he adds.

Writing has always been his great love and now, in his early fifties, that love has grown even stronger.

He started writing short stories as a boy and wrote his first book - two entire chapters - when he was 11.

After receiving a Bachelor of Journalism degree, he worked as a magazine writer, and then, to gain background to become a legal correspondent, he enrolled at a law school.

After graduation he practised law and worked for a Wall Street firm. It was while commuting to work that he began writing his suspense novels. In 1990 he started to write full time. Now his books, which have been translated into 25 languages, appear on bestseller lists world-wide.

He ranks British authors Ian Rankin, Val McDermid and Reginald Hill among his favourite thriller writers. Coincidentally, all three appeared at last week's crime writing festival.

Other major influences are British as well. JRR Tolkein - "I just loved Lord Of The Rings" - CS Lewis, James Bond creator Ian Fleming, Edgar Rice Burroughs, who wrote the Tarzan stories, and York-born poet, WH Auden.

But what with writing his blockbusters, short stories and acting - he is to appear as a corrupt reporter in the American soap As The World Turns - Deaver rarely gets to read novels. "Sadly, most of the books I read are for research purposes. For Garden Of Beasts, for instance, I had to read 65 books about Nazis!"

The Vanished Man is published by Hodder and Stoughton, at £14.99.

Updated: 09:28 Wednesday, July 23, 2003