How the Author of Spy Thriller Martin Martin & the Death Express Was Inspired by Intercity Trains

Martin Martin & The Death Express cannot be pinned down to one genre; it shifts between satire and spy novel and thriller. To characterise it best would be to say it’s an exciting and thought-provoking modern railway novel, based on the double-named lead Martin, who is working as a railway manager, and who one day fights back against a violent passenger and unexpectedly kills him. It’s an event that causes Martin to join the railway’s ‘Special Collections Unit’ - a clandestine organisation run by railway boss Silas March, which intimidates and eventually deals with any passengers that are unruly. 

The novel is witty, fast-paced, and engages satirically with social and economic questions relevant to today, all of which I want to untangle in my interview with author Sebastian Sullivan when we meet in a Nottingham café on a pleasant Saturday morning. 

We start off talking about his own background, his early love of writing and what drove him to write Martin Martin. “I was always documenting,” Sebastian says of his childhood, “always writing prose, poetry, taking notes and photos.” The youngest child of a working-class and loving family, he grew up listening to the bands his siblings did, and reading the books they recommended to him. So, when his family dove into the pages of Martin Martin, they noticed that, apart from it being similar to the satirical writings of Irvine Welsh, it greatly resembled the type of crime novels they grew up reading - especially Tom Clancy’s techno-thrillers, something Sebastian says he hadn’t intended to base his writing on, but which rather “subconsciously influenced” him. So too did his time on the railways, where he still works part-time, after a long career starting in 2003. 

Back to the book, in which Martin must carry out acts which go against his very moral compass to please the big bosses, I ask why the world he created is so dark. What does it represent? “It’s the result of the line of predatory capitalism,” Sebastian explains. The Special Collections Unit is a vision of a future in which the privileged few are so greedy that they use whatever means necessary to strip the general population of their wealth and financial independence - a scenario that feels frighteningly close. “You can’t trust institutions anymore,” he says, pointing to the ballooning bonuses of energy bosses during the current cost-of-living crisis.

Sebastian continues, “I wanted to write about a world of monsters, but also to try and explain them.” This is a theme you can see in Martin, who has a normal family background in Derby and is then suddenly flung into this world of semi-espionage. “I think Martin represents a sort of everyday man,” he says, adding that the titular character reflects those who try to stick to their integrity in a capitalist world which requires them to be selfish, to be overreaching, to do things that they wouldn’t usually imagine themselves doing.

Upon finishing the novel, I wonder whether Sebastian has plans to write any more, perhaps in the world of Martin Martin, or in another world, maybe with another double-named protagonist. The author confirms that, alongside working on another series of thrillers, he plans a sequel to Martin Martin & The Death Express - one which is more “international in scope” and will tackle more injustices. It’s a big aim, no doubt, but completely achievable - as his writing style is perfectly poised to tackle the big questions society throws at us. 

Martin Martin & The Death Express is now available online and in Waterstones