Author Leslie Waller Puts A Spotlight On Crime, Cover-up and Intrigue
By Richard Ferrara
Special to the Naples Daily News
Author Leslie Waller always has his eyes open for conspiracy.
Waller, of Naples, has written more than 50 novels about crime and cover-up, including New York Times best sellers in the 1960s and ‘70s like "The Banker," "The Family" and "The Swiss Account." His books have sold more than 30 million copies.
"You have to be skeptical. You can't take anything for granted, especially if it comes from an official source," said Waller, sipping coffee at a cafe not too far from his home on Gulf Shore Boulevard. "You have to assume that the main job of official sources is to cover up things and make it look like the people who are running things know what they're doing."
Many of Waller's books have come from his scanning of newspapers for interesting stories and possible conspiracies. His novels that were later turned into popular movies, "Dog Day Afternoon" — under the pen name of Patrick Mann — and "Hide in Plain Sight," both came from articles he read in the paper.
"I'm fond of saying that I get all my ideas from The New York Times," Waller joked. He also co-wrote another book that was made into a movie, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." The science-fiction novel was published under co-writer Steven Spielberg's name, and the story idea came from the director.
Conspiracy is the subject of his latest novel, "Target Diana," a fictionalized chronicle of Waller's research into the death of Princess Diana, who was killed in a car accident while being pursued by tabloid photographers in 1997.
The book tells of Waller's uncovering of a conspiracy surrounding Diana's death. His search began years after a 1970s reunion with an old World War II chum whom he calls "Nigel," an agent of Britain's MI-6 secret service.
"I was living in London with my wife in the ‘70s, and one day we were in the dining room of the Chelsea Arts Club. There, sitting at the next table, is Nigel. He gets up and goes to the men's room, so I get up and follow him. When you're in the intelligence business you live half your life in these urinary surroundings talking to the guy you're supposed to meet," said Waller. "As we talked I realized that he was telling me stuff he should never have told me. You would have thought I was his long-lost brother. It turned out that this was a guy high up in MI-6 and was practically running his own show."
Waller stayed in touch with Nigel and learned more of the craft of secret-service work. Then, after the death of Diana, Waller remembered some of the things he'd heard from Nigel in earlier years. The new book "Target Diana" describes those details, including MI-6's use of the car crash as a method of assassination, and how to go about secretly doctoring a drink that can disorient its victim.
"Nigel told me about how you make a drink, say a martini, that's got a proof of about 50, and you put it in a freezer and let it sit there for an hour or two before taking it out; it still hasn't hardened because it's alcohol. Then you pick up an ice cube and put it in and all of a sudden all the water that was in there coagulates around the ice cube… and what you've got left is a 160-proof martini. You really don't need to give a guy a third, two of them will do it," said Waller. What if Diana's limousine driver was tricked into drinking one of these doctored cocktails, and suddenly became disoriented while racing through the Pont de l'Alma tunnel in Paris, Waller speculates. Was a nudge from another conspiring car the catalyst that instigated the disaster? Waller thinks so.
"You have to know how to wreck a car in order to stage a car crash, otherwise it looks phony. MI-6 has a kind of pattern on the car crash. That is their chief way of assassinating people," said Waller. Consequently, the driver of Diana's limousine was found to be drunk by over three times the limit under French law. A white car, believed to be a Fiat Uno, is said to have collided lightly with the limo before it crashed. Conspiracy? The world may never know for sure, but Waller stands by his book.
"A lot of people think of me as a writer of conspiracy fiction, but this book and most of my other books like it are not fiction. They are nonfiction that's been doctored slightly because my lawyers want me to and my wife wants me to," said Waller. "Some of the names and places have been changed, but I would say 95 to 98 percent of this book is true."
Many may wonder why Waller's book was published four years after the incident occurred. The reason is simple: nobody wanted it.
"I wrote the book about six months after the event. I talked to my agent and she says, 'I can't sell this book, I'm not even going to ask if it's true or not, it’ll bring the MI-6 down on us; you may just as well commit suicide'," Waller recalled, laughing. "Four years pass and nobody wants this book. Then I get a call from somebody at Transatlantic Publishers in LA."
In April 2001, Transatlantic published "Target Diana" as an e-book on the Internet. Then, a couple of months later, it formally debuted in paperback. As of now, there have been no lawyers or MI-6 agents knocking on Waller's door. Although with the experiences he's had in the past, Waller said he wouldn't be surprised.
"I did get sued once for 'Dog Day Afternoon.' I did the research and used the real names of the people involved. The guy who (Al) Pacino played (Sonny Wortzik) — and really did a terrific job — tried to sue me when he went to jail despite the fact that we had paid him $20,000 for the rights to his life.
"But in prison he ran into what they call a ‘guardhouse lawyer’ who told him 'Hey, we can get you a lot more than that.' So they went to trial. ... Of course he lost because he couldn't get around the fact that he had already been paid for it. So if I can be sued for that I can certainly be sued for a novel about Diana," Waller said.
Waller, now in his 70s, lives in Naples with his wife, Patricia. He continues to write novels, and is also the editor of the Naples Review cultural magazine.