The late writer Patrick O’Brian was famously private about his own life. O’Brian’s biographer Dean King, explains why he was drawn to write about the novelist: “I felt that by not telling the truth to reporters and to his live audiences in the United States during visits here, O’Brian forfeited the right to not have a closer look taken. There’s a right way and a wrong way to go about these things. My motive was not to bring down this man, it was simply to set the record straight, to present an accurate record of a great writer.” – The Idler