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Sixty seconds with Paul Johnson...
The Silver Stain, Paul Johnston's fourth novel featuring half-Greek half-Scots private eye Alex Mavros, is published by Creme de la Crime.
RTE: Describe yourself in a sentence?
Johnson: Not very tall, not very dark but incredibly handsome; a shrinking violet with well honed teeth; a would-be academic who went over to the dark side of fiction writing.
RTE: What's the one record you'd take to a desert island?
Johnson: One! I've got thousands of CDs. At a pinch, I'd go for the Who's Quadrophenia.
RTE: What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Johnson: A thriller novelist, though it was only after writing three unpublishable 'literary' novels that I realised crime was for me.
RTE: Who's your oldest friend?
Johnson: One Bill Hay, whom I met at school when we were 13 and with whom I subsequently underwent many rites of passage.
RTE: If I ruled the world...
Johnson: ...there would be no TV, smoking, pop music, private cars or private enterprise...and sex would be arranged by the state at a weekly session. On the other hand, there would be zero unemployment, life-long education and no crime. (See my first novel, Body Politic, soon to be republished as an ebook by Creme de la Crime.)
RTE: Which book do you wish you'd written?
Johnson: Horace's Odes
RTE: What makes you angry?
Johnson: You want a fxxxing list? How about unregulated capitalism, people traffickers, (most) TV 'executives', (most) Hollywood movies, politicians, bankers, the hereditary monarchy, religious fundamentalists, (most) media companies, Dora the Explorer (I have small kids), (most) landlords, arms companies, mysteries solved by cats, ghostwritten novels and Spam.
RTE: Name your five dream dinner party guests.
Johnson: Helen of Troy, Aristophanes, Arthur Conan Doyle, Patricia Highsmith, Dashiell Hammett. Hang on, too many men - strike Conan Doyle and replace with Jessica Rabbit.
RTE: Who would you least like to be stuck in a lift with?
Johnson: Tony Blair
RTE: What inspired you to start writing?
Johnson: Er, inspiration. The fact that my father was a successful novelist may have been in the mix, though he always stressed the pitfalls rather than the benefits.
RTE: Where would you most like to live?
Johnson: Orkney
RTE: Sum up your latest book in no more than 12 words.
Johnson: Silver coins, Nazis, snow-capped Cretan mountains, a massacre, Hollywood stars and wisecracks.
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