Kingston College lecturer Simon Corbin will be signing copies of his second novel, Love, Gudrun Ensslin, in Waterstone's in the Bentalls Centre on Saturday. GRAHAM MOODY caught up with the 45-year-old to discuss it and his hopes people won't mistake it for glorifying terrorism.

Graham Moody: So what's your new novel about then Simon?

Simon Corbin: It imagines a situation in which a former Baader Meinhof terrorist gets re-radicalised in today's credit crunch. They were the first celebrity terrorists in West Germany in the late 1960s and I wanted to imagine if one of those characters was around now what they would be doing and it created this psychological thriller. It was four years of research and Stefan Aust, the world's foremost Baader Meinhof authority, helped me.

GM: Are you not worried people could accuse you of glorifying terrorism?

SC: I was aware of that but as much as this is written as a response to the greed and irresponsibility of bankers, it is not a hate tract that is endorsing that kind of radicalism. A novel is the appropriate form to play with these sort of ideas but I know there is a risk of it being misunderstood and I hope it isn't. There is a twist at the end and if people read all the way through they will see the ultimate message is one of peace and to help people see the consequences of getting radicalised. It is a kind of warning that you are better off finding another way even if your cause is right or just.

GM: You've included a real life murder haven't you?

SC: Yes, an unsolved one I have fictionalised. A girl called Ingeborg Barz joined Baader Meinhof and was involved in a bank raid in which a policeman was killed. Soon afterwards she phoned home saying she wanted to leave the group and then disappeared. A year later her body was discovered beside an autobahn outside Munich. I have fictionalised the event and the main character is involved in it. I hope the Barz family will understand what I have done.

GM: It's very different to your fist novel Rude Boy.

SC: Yes, that is a completely different animal, that was a story about growing up in London in the punk era. I am not a genre writer. A book idea sort of comes out of the ether to me asking to be written. I have got two more in the pipeline I am writing now which are again very different. It's the first time I have written two at once and it is a bit schizophrenic but I seem to be coping.

Waterstone's, Bentalls Centre, Kingston, February 19, 2pm. Visit lovegudbook.weebly.com.