HELEN TAYLOR

People often ask me how much of Thai Die is true. The answer is usually not what they're expecting. The murders aren't true. The crime investigation isn't true. Detective Matthew Goodwin isn't a real person. But many of the places, experiences and emotions in the book came directly from my own year living in Thailand.

Looking back, it's strange how often life-changing moments don't feel life-changing at the time. They feel like a phone call. Or a cancelled holiday. Or a conversation over a cup of tea. All three of them are part of the same story. Together, they explain how I ended up moving to Thailand for a year and writing my first novel Thai Die.

Anyone who has worked in IT for any length of time will have heard the phrase “Garbage in, garbage out.” It was practically a mantra in the 80s and 90s — a reminder that computers aren’t magical, mysterious beings. They don’t “decide” to misbehave. They simply process what they’re given. Feed a system poor data, broken code, or badly structured information, and you’ll get exactly that back out. And really, isn’t that the perfect description of AI?