Liam Ostermann asked Tim Butcher:

Thank you so much for 'liking' my review of Trigger, it is always somewhat chastening when you realise your less then flattering remarks about a book have been read by it's author. In some compensation let me add that there were things in your book which affected and stay with me, in particular you description of the memorial to Princip all desolate and used as toilet. I need to make this a question so...?

Tim Butcher Liam - no need to qualify your review of my book The Trigger. No book works for every reader and clearly mine did not work for you. I liked your review for two reasons: first, it was an honest appraisal and second, it got me thinking.

Princip is a remarkable historical figure, one with enormous impact yet with precious little definition. He ghosts into all of our lives yet he left no body of conventional historical evidence, no corpus of writing, no speeches, no diaries, no correspondence, no minutes, no artwork, no photographs. Those looking for a conventional biography framed through conventional historiography will, like you, be disappointed by The Trigger. For that I am sorry - no writer wishes to disappoint.

But that is precisely what got my curiosity up. A child's hand might ball into a disappointed fist when trying to touch a cloud but that does not stop the cloud from being able to create a storm. And I guess that is what The Trigger was about: recognising this teenager created a storm yet being forced to triangulate him using place, time, resonance with events that would also take place in the same space.

Thank you again for your candour and engagement. In this age when we face of blizzard of temptations for our attention, that you read my book is honour itself.

Wishing you good reading, TimB

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