Robert Harris: 'You can’t escape history. It will come back and bite you'

As his latest novel, Act Of Oblivion, takes on a new relevance in the wake of Elizabeth II's death, best-selling author Robert Harris talks regicide, Cromwell and early attempts at creating a republic in England 

Act Of Oblivion by Robert Harris is riding high in the Irish books charts. Picture: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Robert Harris’s novels are crystal balls that give us a glimpse of a future rushing at us like a freight train. Archangel, his bestseller from 1998, is about the revival of Russian Imperial nostalgia (as physically embodied by a ‘secret heir’ to Stalin). 

In the Fear Index, from 2011, he predicted machine intelligence — the algorithms that pull the strings of our social media feeds and internet searches — leading us down a dark path. His 'Rome' trilogy — Boris Johnson is a fan — explored American decline and fall through the prism of the classical world.