Now happily living in Oxford, Haddon, 40, has big muscles from his penchant for marathon kayaking on the River Thames. "You can only write for five or six hours a day," he says, "so you have to find something else to do the rest of the time. For a lot of writers, it is either alcohol or family breakdown." Or both, one assumes. Haddon's solution is "wholesome outdoor sports" and painting with acrylics so that the canvases are dry before his toddler, Alfie, comes home from nursery school.