Tony Kent - Author

Tony Kent (born 3rd April 1978) is a thriller writer, a criminal barrister and a former heavyweight boxer. He writes the bestselling Joe Dempsey / Michael Devlin / Sarah Truman series of political and legal action thrillers which began in 2018 with Killer Intent, continued in 2019 with Marked For Death ad which grew again in 2020 with his third novel, the US-set political blockbuster Power Play.

The name Tony Kent is a pseudonym.

Early Life

Kent was born in Perivale, London in 1978. The third of five children, his father, Derek, was a builder and his mother, Elizabeth, was a full-time mother. From an early age Kent worked with his father and other relatives in the building trade, primarily as a labourer on both roofing and tarmac surfacing works. He did this at weekends and during holidays throughout his school years, with the expectation that he would continue as a builder once he left school at 16.

Despite this expectation, Kent had no intention of becoming a builder. Instead he had a long-held but little mentioned ambition to become either a criminal barrister, and a 'Plan B' of joining the British Army. When he could not get the parental permission to do the latter aged 16, he decided to stay on and take his A'Levels as a way to 'kill time' before joining up at 18. In the two years that followed he found that he excelled at the subjects he had chosen to study and - having achieved unexpectedly high A'Level grades at the conclusion of his course - he decided to pursue his 'secret' ambition. He applied to one University - the University of Dundee, chosen on the basis that they had advertised their boxing club in their prospectus - and was accepted to study English Law.

Throughout his childhood Kent was heavily engaged in sport, primarily boxing but also rugby and tae kwon-do. Training out of a number of different amateur boxing clubs but mainly coached by his uncle, Kent successfully competed in a wide array of national and international boxing tournaments over the course of many years. This career began disastrously at the age of 13 years when he fought in the final the 65kgs category of the British Schoolboys Championship, but it quickly improved and by the time of his retirement at 23 years of age Kent was a heavyweight with a number of domestic titles to his name. He also played rugby - as an openside flanker - for London Welsh RFC until moving to Dundee in 1996.

Legal Career

Kent graduated from the University of Dundee with a 2:1 degree. By this time he had secured his place to study what was then called the Bar Vocational Course at London's Inns of Court School of Law, this being the first post-graduate stage of a barrister's training. This was partially funded by the Harmsworth Scholarship, which Kent was awarded by the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple. He attended the Inns School of Law between 2000 and 2001, eventually graduating with a grade of Very Competent.

Following the BVC, Kent was accepted to undertake pupillage - the final stage of a barrister's training, akin to an apprenticeship - at 2 Bedford Row (now the Chambers of Brian Altman QC and Jim Sturman QC, then the Chambers of William Clegg QC) which commenced in 2002. Kent was lucky enough to be paired with a pupil-master with similar strengths to his own, and as a result this stage of his training was effective enough that he was offered membership (tenancy) at 2 Bedford Row in 2003. Kent accepted and stayed with Chambers - both then and now the leading criminal chambers in London - for the next 10 years.

In 2013 Kent left 2 Bedford Row to assist in the formation of a small, bespoke law firm - Ewing Law - specialising in private criminal defence. At the same time Kent established his own Chambers from the same Westminster address, to allow him more control over his own court diary and caseload. There were two reasons for making this decision. First, Kent could see that - due to legal aid cuts - he could offer a much more hands-on, cradle to grave service to those individuals accused of crime if he worked more closely with well-funded solicitors firms who could seek out his input at an earlier stage. In addition, by 2013 Kent had written his first novel - Killer Intent - and was in the process of trying to secure a publisher. He had by now decided that he wanted to write professionally, and in order to do this he knew that he needed more control over his day to day life than was possible within a thriving, busy criminal chambers like 2 Bedford Row. He therefore made the decision to establish his own Chambers, to work alongside Ewing Law and other loyal solicitors, and to pursue his ambitions as an author.

In almost twenty years of practice, Kent has prosecuted and defended in a long line of high-profile, extremely serious criminal trials. Now purely accepting instruction to defend, he specialises in allegations such as murder, robbery, kidnap, blackmail, complex fraud and offences of drug importation and supply. In 2009 he was first featured in The Chambers and Partner Bar Directory - the leading independent guide to the legal profession - as a 'Leader in his Field' for General Crime, which at the time made him the youngest barrister recommended by the Directory.

Throughout his career Kent has dealt not only with the UK government but also with Scotland Yard, the NCA, MI5 and the FBI, as well as some of Europe’s most infamous organised crime groups.

Writing Career

Kent first caught the writing bug as a boy, but - in line with what he describes as his 'visual style' - he focused on ideas and novice film scripts for TV shows and films. This changed aged 17 when he read the thriller 'The Winner' by US author David Baldacci. This was the first time Kent had read a book from this genre and opened his eyes to the possibilities. From this time onwards, he maintained an ambition to write but he did not begin to do so until he was 22 years old and just about to begin his pupillage at 2 Bedford Row.

Shortly before his pupillage, Kent met an old school friend and while catching up he mentioned that he was about to begin the final stage of his training as a barrister. The school friend responded by telling him that it was impressive that Kent had achieved this since he 'comes from a family of villains' (he does not, although his elder brother has been in trouble in the past and this is no doubt the source of that misunderstanding). Rather than being annoyed at the comment, Kent thought it made a great idea for a character for a book, and so the next day he wrote the first four chapters of what became Killer Intent, featuring his 'barrister with a dark past' Michael Devlin. Shortly after this Kent began his pupilage and his career progressed extremely quickly. As a result, he did not touch Killer Intent again - or write more fiction of any sort - for almost ten years.

By the time Kent had reached thirty, his ambition to write was growing stronger and stronger, and so he fished out the chapters of 'Killer Intent' and over the course of the next two years he completed the book on train journeys, while waiting at court and late at night. He then began the long process of finding a publisher, whilst at the same time leaving 2 Bedford Row and setting up his own criminal chambers to provide the flexibility he needed to write as he planned.

In 2017 Kent enjoyed a fortuitous meeting with Lorne Forsyth, the owner and chairman of Elliott and Thompson Books, a small independent publisher focused on non-fiction. Lorne read Killer Intent and what was then the first half of the unfinished Marked For Death, and began negotiations to publish Killer Intent. Kent signed a four-book deal with Elliott and Thompson that year, and the Killer Intent hardback was launched at the bookstore in London's Harrods in February 2018. The hardback was followed by the paperback in the summer of 2018, with the book being selected as one of ten picks for the inaugural Zoe Ball Book Club, part of ITV's Zoe Ball on Sunday Show. The book - a political action thriller based around a plot against the UK Government - was extremely well reviewed and had a short sequence filmed for the episode of the show.

In 2019 Kent followed up Killer Intent with Marked For Death. A legal action thriller set in London's Old Bailey and the legal world around it, Marked For Death was released first in hardback before its paperback was selected as a summer pick by the Richard and Judy Book Club. With reviews equally those of Killer Intent, Marked for Death marked Kent's 'arrival' as a name to watch in crime fiction.

In 2020 the series continued with Kent's third novel, Power Play. A political action thriller set in New York, Washington DC, London and Afghanistan, Power Play was a blockbuster step up from Kent's previous books in terms of scope, as it took the series international. With its striking black, white and red cover picture of the White House and the tagline 'The Enemies Aren't At The Gate, They're Already Inside', Power Play follows Intelligence Agent Joe Dempsey and criminal barrister Michael Devlin as they investigate an act of terrorism which makes them question who is really in power in the Oval Office. As relevant to today's political situation as it is possible to be, Power Play received positive five star reviews across the board and cemented Kent's position within the crime writing world.

In 2018, after the success of Killer Intent, Kent's 4 book deal with Elliott and Thompson was increased to 8 books. He is currently writing the as yet untitled 4th book, having had to start from scratch at the outset of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic due to the fact that his original Book Four plot involved the use of a pandemic as a means to carry out a terrorist attack on the United States. Kent felt that, given the death toll of COVID-19, it was not the time to be using such a plot line for the purposes of entertainment and so he went back to the drawing board.

The Dempsey/Devlin/Truman series has been optioned for television adaption by producer Stuart Fenegan and director Duncan Jones of Liberty Films. The makers of films such as Moon, Source Code, Warcraft and Mute, Stuart and Duncan are now working with Kent on breaking the series down and developing it to be the basis for a prestige television production.

Personal Life

Kent lives in Buckinghamshire with his wife Victoria Christian - the global brand ambassador for Clive Christian Perfumes - their son Joseph and their Jack Russell Terrier Maximus, not far from the part of London where he grew up and where most of his family still live.

Kent remains a devotee of boxing and rugby union, is a long-term supporter of Tottenham Hotspur FC and - away from sport - is still an avid reader and a keen fan of good TV and film. He also listens to far too much Bruce Springsteen and not enough Elvis or Frank Sinatra.

Other Media

In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, Kent began his own YouTube Channel, Tony Kent Writes. Originally designed to document the writing of Book Four, the channel quickly evolved to include interviews with other crime writers, recordings of online festival panels and author recommendations from Kent.

In addition to YouTube, Kent can be followed on Twitter at TonyKent_Writes, on YouTube at tonykent_writes and on Facebook at both Tony Kent Writes and Tony Kent - Author.

References

This article "Tony Kent - Author" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Tony Kent - Author. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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