Investment banker left job for the thrill of writing

By Belinda Goldsmith

As an investment banker in Switzerland, Christopher Reich got fed up with spending 14 hours a day at work and always worrying that someone younger or smarter was about to overtake him, so he quit his job to take up writing. Ten years later, Reich’s decision has paid off with his sixth novel Rules of Deception debuting at No. 3 on the New York Times bestseller list and Paramount snapping up movie rights with Brad Pitt holding talks over playing the lead role. Reich’s previous five novels were financial thrillers but his latest book is about global surgeon Jonathan Ransom discovering after his wife’s death, in a skiing accident in the Swiss Alps, that she had been leading a double life as a spy. Reich puts his success down to treating writing like a job in finance — spending long days at the desk. He spoke to Reuters about life as a writer:

Q: Did you always want to write?
A: No, I never really aspired to be a writer growing up. But I was working in the Union Bank of Switzerland and that kind of life is hard with 12 to 14 hours at the desk and always someone younger and smarter coming up behind you. So I thought there must be a better way to make a living.

I told my wife that I thought I wanted to be a novelist as I was a voracious reader ... so I quit my job and moved back to Texas.

Was it hard to write the first book ‘Numbered Account’ that was released in 1998?
It took me about two years to write the first book and then I got lucky.

I was able to get the first 100 pages of my novel into the hands of writer James Patterson — whom we call Saint James in my house — and he read these pages and said he would break his rule and recommend his agent take me on.

Nine months later, I was rewriting that book over and over again and we sold it out for auction for $700,000 which was huge money as we were down to our last money.

But you were confident in your writing skills?
I knew I was a good writer. When I was an investment banker I would write big long deal memos and everyone would love them and pass them around as they had some humour in them. So I had an inclining and I knew my skills were there. But I approached this as a way to earn a living and had no real passion there. I wanted to be a best-selling novelist.

So you have no real passion for writing?
A: I really enjoy my work as a writer but it is a job and you have to approach it as a real job.  I took the skill I learnt as an investment banker, which is getting to work at 6.30am every day, taking a break for lunch, and working until 5.30pm.

You can’t wait for the muse to land on your shoulder and inspire you.

You have to slog and do a lot of research. Writing is a profession and you have to have absolute discipline.

‘Rules of Vengeance’ is due out next summer. Is that a sequel to ‘Rules of Deception’?
It is. This is the first series I have ever written and it is so fun and exhilarating. // Reuters