Spy writer Jon Stock: How I survived an online literary mauling To be fair to my latest Amazon reviewer, she is not your average punter. She is a professor of English at the State University of New York at Geneseo, and her review was 700 words of well-reasoned, if flawed, criticism. I know this because I tracked her down. Without wishing to sound like a serial killer, I track down all my hostile reviewers, sooner or later, particularly the anonymous ones (although I'm still working on "FleetStreetMan"). In this age of "sock puppetry," when authors attack each other online under false names, it's a necessary part of the job. Creditably, my reviewer not only used her real name, Julia M Walker, she also provided an email address. The online world would be such a happier, more informed place if everyone was obliged to put their real name beside reviews or comments. At first, I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to say to her, given that she was "deeply annoyed and mildly furious" with me. Her chief gripe was that I had bumped off the two lead female characters in my trilogy. Stock kills them both, even as each expresses remorse for her treachery, thus remaking the paradigm that's been around since Boccaccio, at least: a good woman is a dead woman. To rest her case, she had dug out and read an earlier novel of mine, The Cardamom Club, in which, er, the lead female also dies a horrible death. I realised she was on to something. That evening, over a quiet supper, I discussed the review with my wife and explained what a misogynist was to the children. "Four novels, three dead women," I said, quoting from the review. No one could argue with that. But, despite the one star, Prof Walker had found much to like in the books. The Indian elements were "fascinating," Marchant was "vintage damaged-but-true with some interesting bits" and my female head of MI5 "gets better as the books go on." I was also flattered that she had bought and read the entire trilogy in one sitting. I felt that she was someone I could do business with. So that night, when the house was quiet, I wrote to her, explaining that she was, of course, entitled to her opinions and that she perhaps had a point about the dead women. I also asked if she might consider writing an individual review for each book, rather than using the same blanket comment for all three, as I thought this was unorthodox and unfair. The first two, Dead Spy Running and Games Traitors Play, had been widely reviewed and could look after themselves. Her comments would sit in the context of a range of other online opinions. But Dirty Little Secret had barely set out on its journey into the world, and hers would only be the second review on Amazon. She couldn't have been nicer. We had a civilised exchange of emails ("It's great that the already dead ex-girlfriend in your next book won't die again"), agreed on the cravenness of anonymous reviewers, and she offered to withdraw her review from Dirty Little Secret, "the one I like best, despite its passing strange conclusion." And although she mainly teaches Milton, she also runs a course on thrillers and has promised to put Dirty Little Secret on the syllabus for the next class. For me, the whole exercise was an example of the internet working as it should, a place where people with wildly differing opinions, in this case about books, can engage in constructive dialogue. The literary critic, as championed by Sir Peter Stothard, has its place, but so do online reviewers, even the hostile ones. Dirty Little Secret" by Jon Stock is published by HarperCollins