“People misunderstand what a police state is. It isn't a country where the police strut around in jackboots; it's a country where the police can do anything they like. Similarly, a security state is one in which the security establishment can do anything it likes.”

British journalist and novelist

John Henry Lanchester is a British journalist and novelist. His reviews appear frequently in the London Review of Books. He is known for writing journalism and fiction, with book reviews as a regular part of his work. The available facts place him chiefly as a contemporary British writer whose name is closely associated with criticism and literary journalism.