Henry Porter has written five novels for Orion and one children's novel. In 2005, his novel Brandenburg, which is set in East Germany at the time of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, won the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger. His thriller Empire State, the first about extraordinary rendition, was also nominated for the award. His books have been widely acclaimed and translated into over a dozen languages.

For five years he campaigned against the attack on civil liberties by the government in the Observer newspaper where he writes a column. During that time he debated with Tony Blair in a public exchange of emails about his government's record on surveillance, databases and the rights of the individual. He has been the London editor of Vanity Fair since 1993.