Too often the representation of journalism is not authentic in fiction,” says Sarah Sultoon. “It has to feel real otherwise it doesn’t feel right.” That is what inspired her to swap a 15-year career as an award-winning news journalist to writing political thrillers. “Journalism taught me a lot when it comes to fiction. Journalists know what makes a compelling story and how best to communicate it.”

Sultoon’s career as a journalist began at CNN in 2002 after she graduated from the University of Birmingham. She has covered some of the biggest world news events, including the London terror attacks in July 2005 as well as working as a field producer in war zones including Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan and Israel/Lebanon during the 2006 conflict. This gave her unique access and insight to events as they were unfolding on the ground. Her work on the war in Syria won her three Peabody Awards, which honours excellence in storytelling. “When the facts are under attack, the medium of fiction is a powerful tool,” she says. “I started writing my novels partly as a response to the term ‘fake news’ used by President Trump in 2016 to attack journalists or media he didn’t like. I got sick of the truth being devalued, of journalists being cast as enemies of the people.”

Sarah Sultoon

She adds: “It is increasingly difficult to navigate the news and current affairs online. We now live in an age where journalists are targets simply for doing their jobs. But fiction can still reach people and make them question what happens in real life.”

Dirt, published by Orenda Books nine months prior to the October 7 attacks, is set on a fictional kibbutz in northern Israel on the border with Lebanon in 1996. The story focuses on a young reporter, Jonny, who investigates the suspicious murder of an Israeli-Arab and soon uncovers an infiltration of tunnels and caves underneath the kibbutz. The historical context in the book reflects true events, with a backdrop of political unrest between Israel and Lebanon, and Hezbollah rocket attacks. Sultoon says she chose this period of history because it made an impression on her in her formative years as a teenager.

“I lived on Kibbutz Rosh Hanikra on the Israel-Lebanese border in 1995-6 as part of my year out. That year was a political tipping point in the region – Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in November 1995, and we spent weeks sleeping in bomb shelters in April 1996 during the Israeli military operation in southern Lebanon. I returned ten years later as a journalist to cover the Israel/Lebanon war in 2006, which gave me a different perspective on the previous conflict and made me reflect on the creation of the kibbutzim in that part of the country.” The kibbutz setting lent itself perfectly to a classic “whodunnit mystery” location. She adds: “It is a closed community, where you don’t go in and out without a cause, set in a place that everyone thinks belongs to them in one way or another. So I started thinking about what might happen if a body turned up...”

She says it was a balance weaving the factual with the fiction in the book, especially when some of her readers do not know the complexities of the region and the conflict. “Some people might not know what a kibbutz is or know about the political situation at the time but through the multiple perspectives of the characters, I tried to show the nuances of the political environment and region.”

Her first book, The Source, was loosely based on the child-trafficking rings in Rochdale and Rotherham. Her fourth, Death Flight, is set against the backdrop of Argentina’s Dirty War and gives an insight into the state terrorism that existed under the military dictatorship there during the 1970s. She says: “Crime fiction can give you a unique insight into a place in time that deepens our understanding of past events as much as historical news coverage. It shows you what the arts were exploring at the time that couldn’t necessarily be brought to light in reality.”

At work: Sarah Sultoon

Sultoon left CNN in 2017 and completed a Masters in Creative Writing at Cambridge University. Over the past seven years she has been concentrating on her writing while balancing family life with her three children. Her fifth thriller is currently in production.

Over the past year has been freelancing as a news editor at Channel 4 News covering events since October 7. She says: “I am proud of Dirt and how it portrayed the region, but I am uncomfortable about foreseeing some of the events of October 7 being played out before they occurred. It just shows how much the arts can teach us about real life.”​

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 @SultoonSarah