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Sixty seconds with Catherine Sampson...
Catherine Sampson has spent about 15 of the last 27 years in China, including studying, teaching and working as the Beijing correspondent for The Times. Her first crime novel was Falling Off Air. Her third and fourth books, The Pool of Unease and The Slaughter Pavilion, are both set in China.
RTE: Describe yourself in a sentence?
Sampson: A British writer who’s lived longer in Beijing than anywhere else in her life and who suspects there’s no place in the world that makes a better setting for murder.
RTE: What's the one record you'd take to a desert island?
Sampson: Some Indonesian gamelan music to make me feel as though I’m on holiday, even if I’m stuck there.
RTE: What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Sampson: A writer.
RTE: Who's your oldest friend?
Sampson: My family.
RTE: If I ruled the world...
Sampson: Ordinary people in China would have more access to the law.
RTE: Which book do you wish you'd written?
Sampson: Anything by Donna Leon.
RTE: What makes you angry?
Sampson: Call centres, online complaints procedures and Communist Party propaganda.
RTE: Name your five dream dinner party guests.
Sampson: All working in Beijing: The director of a prison, a state security bureau agent, a private detective, a high-ranking police officer, and a forensic scientist. They probably wouldn’t trust each other enough to have a conversation, so I’d have to invite them separately. Most likely they’d politely turn down the invitation.
RTE: Who would you least like to be stuck in a lift with?
Sampson: Dick Cheney.
RTE: What inspired you to start writing?
Sampson: Everything.
RTE: Where would you most like to live?
Sampson: Beijing, but miraculously clear of pollution and transplanted so it’s just an hour’s flight from Heathrow.
RTE: Sum up your latest book in no more than 12 words.
Sampson: Private detective Song reluctantly investigates a father’s final, shocking act of despair.
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