by Oliver Dowson

Have you ever worked with a colleague who could be suspected of having some ulterior motives? Too eager to sit in meetings outside their remit, taking copious notes, making mysterious calls? Have you witnessed sales executives or professionals brought in by management and entrusted with their corporate secrets? Seen an ‘IT technician’ sitting in a corner, who might be nothing of the sort and making surreptitious recordings?

In a career providing data services to the biggest multinationals, traveling across the globe, I finally realised that in the meetings I went to I was probably witnessing numerous examples of industrial espionage. Not that I could prove it at the time. But later, learning that unlikely companies based in remote jurisdictions had been gifted billion-dollar contracts, and reading about new inventions, patents and business developments that matched what I had learnt about myself, but attributed to completely different businesses, I became convinced that I could join up the dots. Most think of industrial espionage as other countries stealing secrets – China and Russia usually being in the frame. There are plenty of proven examples. But domestic undercover operations are ignored at one’s peril.

Big businesses know that industrial espionage is a risk, of course, but my own experience was that their approach to stopping it was incomplete or misguided. For example, I often visited international sites belonging to two of the biggest industrial conglomerates. Both, unsurprisingly, don’t allow visitors to bring cameras into their sites. However, the gate security guards employed to enforce the rules often don’t have scanners, and when they do, they clearly haven’t been trained to spot illicit devices hidden in coats and bags (not that I was carrying any) – or simply don’t care. I made hundreds of such visits. They did know not to allow cell phones with cameras, but their solution was to affix a sticker over the lens. Even when they did it right – and plenty of times they’d stick it over the heartbeat tracker, or even the on/off switch instead – the stickers peel off easily. I never broke the system, but not one ever once checked me on leaving to see if the sticker was still in place or if I’d taken photos I shouldn’t have.

Visitors and staff entrusted with confidential material that might become trade secrets are required to sign NDAs. Sales executives and consultants usually work with lots of companies, including competitors. Probably every road warrior can think of ways of leaking information without being implicated. Often it’s not even deliberate. Just saying things that might impress the people you’re in front of at the time.

When COVID forced my retirement, I wrote my first book, a travelogue titled There’s No Business Like International Business. In it, I recounted some of the dozens of anecdotal travel experiences I had regaled my colleagues with over the years. Many had told me “you have to write a book”. I was pleasantly surprised that so many bought, read, and liked it. Thus encouraged to write more, I decided to turn my hand to fiction.

Writing The Repurposed Spy gave me an opportunity to fictionalise scenarios I’d experienced in my professional life that I believed could be examples of industrial espionage. Supposedly secure meetings in hotels that could be live-streamed to a spy in the next room. A spy masquerading as a reporter. A so-called ‘professional engineering consultant’ brought in to a top level meeting who proved to be clueless, though it didn’t stop him making copious notes.

But my book is in no way a business book, rather, it’s intended unashamedly as entertaining fiction. The protagonist, Ronald Jones, is introduced as a retired and reclusive polyglot schoolteacher, but has a hidden past that slowly surfaces. Imprisoned in a minimalist apartment in a remote and mysterious location, ostensibly willingly, he services the whims of his captors and writes his journal, recounting his late life relaunch as a spy. In it, he traverses Latin America, never being allowed to spend as much time as a tourist as he would have liked, instructed by a slick British business executive, and aided, and where necessary rescued, by three fixers or facilitators who pop up in different disguises and at unexpected times.

Like most authors, I tend to write from personal experience. The Repurposed Spy travels to destinations I’ve visited myself and know well, and he shares my love of fine food. The other characters are all mixed-up allegories of people I have met in his working life. Whilst the spying experiences might be wild exaggerations, they’re not entirely incredible. Similar things might even be going on right under your nose. The twists at the end of the book have led some reviewers to bemoan that there couldn’t be a sequel. They’re wrong. What some have interpreted as a coda is in fact a cliffhanger; the characters return in the second book in the series, Spies on Safari, which takes the action to Africa, and is due for publication in November 2023.

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Oliver Dowson was born in Lowestoft, England. After studying mathematics, statistics, and computer science at university, he spent a long career building a multi-national business from scratch, exploiting his love of foreign travel, cultures, languages and food. He has visited more than 140 countries for business and pleasure, and tries to add at least another new one every year!
Oliver is no stranger to writing, having been editor of both Imperial College and University of London Union newspapers in his youth and writing many articles throughout his business career. Trapped by the pandemic, he wrote his first book, a travelogue There’s No Business Like International Business, published in 2022 to critical acclaim. Now, Oliver has turned to fiction. The Repurposed Spy was published earlier in 2023 and the second in the series, Spies on Safari, comes out in November. Oliver is also a podcast host and mentors and supports several new young ambitious entrepreneurs. When he’s not away adding new experiences further afield, he lives in North London and Oviedo, Spain. You can learn more on his website.

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