Author R&R with Duncan Ritchie

Duncan Ritchie grew up on a plantation in North Borneo. After graduating from the University of Western Australia, he spent thirty years advising governments and companies on energy and infrastructure transactions and policy. He has also written persuasive non-fiction for multilateral agencies (including ADB and UNEP), advocating for policy changes and investment to address climate change (evidently, not persuasive enough). Duncan lives in Tasmania with his Malinois pup, Aletheia (Alé), who thinks he’s slightly mad. 

Concerned by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (again) and the rise of right-wing extremism, Duncan began scribbling down what-if scenarios in 2022—at the time, many seemed outlandish. At the core were the questions: if someone wanted to bring America to her knees and disturb the world order, how would they go about it? And what could be done to counter that? Those what-ifs became the foundation of his debut novel, The Truth Chamber, initially intended as a warning of the rise of fascism in America.

In an election year marred by violence, Mack Leach—the Red Caesar—rises in the polls. His rival, Democratic presidential candidate Anna Hoffman, warns a divided country that under the Red Caesar, America will devolve into an authoritarian state: a Russia 2.0. Admiral Liam Driscall, struggling with the devastating loss of his family, lives in isolation until a confrontation with a book burner jolts him into action. He sets aside his grief and joins Anna’s campaign. Liam’s team enlists the help of a Stanford PhD student developing an AI technology—the Truth Chamber—to figure out who is behind the escalating domestic chaos. This is no longer just an American election; it is a global stratagem to topple the last bastion of the old world order. Anna’s team soon learns that the truth has become political…and dangerous. And to save democracy, they may be forced to leave muddy footprints on the Constitution. The only thing they know for certain is that if the Red Caesar becomes president, it’ll be the end of the republic.

Duncan Ritchie stops by In Reference to Murder to talk about writing the book:

My aim with The Truth Chamber was to imagine a plausible speculative future for America rooted in its pre-2015 history. I wanted to hold up a mirror, then tilt it forward slightly—with the warning: “This is where you could be heading.”

The Truth Chamber challenges comfortable myths about America’s founding and explores how aspects of that founding continue to cast long shadows over the country’s politics, institutions, and progress. As an Australian writing about the United States, I knew my criticism would have to withstand scrutiny. My best defence would be meticulous research. 

I read around fifty books on fascism, propaganda, political deception, constitutional law, the Supreme Court, and the role of money and religion in American politics. I sought out unvarnished, uncomfortable histories of the United States and its founding. I wanted to understand and authentically portray the forces that ail America, and how those forces could give rise to a fascist leader: the Red Caesar.

But books alone wouldn’t be enough. In October 2024, I spent six weeks travelling through nine US states, Washington, DC, and Canada, visiting key locations from the novel. The trip coincided with the presidential election, allowing me to volunteer for a campaign in Atlanta and knock on doors. That not only gave me direct experience of a campaign, albeit on the periphery, but also invaluable conversations with voters—a real-time temperature check on the American electorate in the days before the election.

Another factor impacting the book was the ever-changing US political landscape. I finished the first draft of The Truth Chamber in July 2024, the day after Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race. The subsequent upheaval—and the election result—forced me to rethink and rewrite significant parts of the novel, moving the point of divergence from America’s real history further back, distancing the story from an increasingly turbulent reality and strengthening its internal logic.

Research, of course, is never finished. The best I could hope for was to get as close as possible to what I call “commercial perfection”, before moving from creation to editing and publishing. I made that transition at the end of 2025 and set myself a series of hard targets to enable a September 2026 release ahead of the US midterm elections.

Kirkus Reviews described The Truth Chamber as “eerily prescient”, calling it “A gut punch to the soul of America and a must-read for all those who value their freedom and future.”

When I began writing The Truth Chamber, I had hoped its darker themes would remain in the realm of fiction for much longer.

The world, it seems, had other plans.

 
You can learn more about Duncan Ritchie via his website and follow him on Instagram, Substack, BlueSky, LinkedIn, and Goodreads. The Truth Chamber is now available via all major booksellers.