1942 on the island of Malta

The Information Officer is a new thriller by bestselling author Mark Mills. The story takes place in Malta and the protagonist is a Max Chadwick, information officer, who becomes embroiled in a murder mystery and decides to embark on a private investigation all of his own.

Max Mills spoke here of the motive behind the choice of setting:

The reason for setting the third book in Malta during the second world war is very simple. As I was nearing the end of The Savage Garden, I was looking for some displacement activity, cause I wasn't having a very fun time of it, and I went to our local junk shop and as always I was browsing through the second hand books and I plucked out a little memoir, a dusty little memoir, and it was written by someone who had been in Malta in 1942. Although I knew that Malta had suffered terribly during the second world war, I didn't know to what degree. I went home, I should have been writing the other book but I was so hooked by this memoir that I read it in one sitting. I knew at that moment that I had the setting for my third novel.

On the question of his book's female character he said:

I've always really enjoyed writing my female characters and they figure large in all of the books. I guess they're all pretty feisty and pretty rounded individuals. I have sometimes been asked why that is. I don't know what the reason to that is other than that I come from a family of strong and willful women. I have a mother who is a force of nature and three very feisty sisters so it seems pretty normal for me that the women that I portray should have those characteristics. They should be real people and not wall flowers.