|
Sixty seconds with Zoë Sharp...
Zoë Sharp spent most of her formative years living on a catamaran on the northwest coast of England. She opted out of mainstream education at the age of 12 in favour of correspondence courses at home. After a host of jobs, she gave up her regular job to become a freelance motoring writer in 1988. She quickly picked up on the photography side of things and now dovetails her photography work with her novels.
RTE: Describe yourself in a sentence?
Sharp: Nerves of steel, heart of gold, and a knob of butter.
RTE: What's the one record you'd take to a desert island?
Sharp: Hmm, only allowed one, eh? Probably Counting Crows. Or Sarah McLaughlin’s Afterglow live tour album. Or Linkin Park. No, wait – Alison Krauss. Can’t I just take my iPod? I’ve about 5500 tracks downloaded onto it so far. No? OK then – Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez. We had the Adagio movement played at our wedding.
RTE: What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Sharp: Once I realised I didn’t have the nerve (or possibly the talent) to be a world-class equestrienne, pretty much what I am now. I wrote my first novel when I was 15, but still don’t consider that I’m grown up quite yet.
RTE: Who's your oldest friend?
Sharp: My husband, Andy. This year marks the turning point where we’ve been together longer than we’ve been apart.
RTE: If I ruled the world...
Sharp: It would be an unmitigated disaster. I can’t even master the internet.
RTE: Which book do you wish you'd written?
Sharp: The one I have yet to write.
RTE: What makes you angry?
Sharp: Unnecessary bureaucracy, lack of common sense, and the amazing arrogance of people who think anything bad that happens to them must always be someone else’s fault.
RTE: Name your five dream dinner party guests.
Sharp: Right at the moment (with a general election looming as I write) I’d pick ex-Prime Minster, Tony Blair; present (unelected) Prime Minister, Gordon Brown; Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg; Conservative leader, David Cameron; and British National Party leader, Nick Griffin. But only if I could add truth serum to their starters, and cyanide to their desserts. Wouldn’t that conversation be interesting?
RTE: Who would you least like to be stuck in a lift with?
Sharp: Anybody who believes that deodorant and breath mints are optional.
RTE: What inspired you to start writing?
Sharp: Receiving death-threat letters in the course of my work as a photojournalist. Proper cut-out-of-newspaper ones like ransom notes, calling me scum and telling me my days were numbered. Scary times.
RTE: Where would you most like to live?
Sharp: Anywhere I’m with Andy feels like home. At the moment that’s halfway up the side of a fell in the wilds of Cumbria, but we’re planning to sell up shortly and build another house. Either that or buy a catamaran and sail around the British Virgin Islands.
RTE: Sum up your latest book in no more than 12 words.
Sharp: Charlie searches for redemption while infiltrating a cult and averting a massacre.
Sixty seconds with Simon Kernick...
Sixty seconds with Tom Harper...
Sixty seconds with Chris Knopf...
Sixty seconds with Connie Dial...
Sixty seconds with Linwood Barclay...
Sixty seconds with Betty Webb...
Sixty seconds with Jonathan Kellerman...
Sixty seconds with Alison Bruce...
Sixty seconds with Laura Childs...
Sixty seconds with Liza Marklund...
Sixty seconds with Carin Gerhardsen...
Sixty seconds with Johnny Temple...
Sixty seconds with David Barrie...
Sixty seconds with Ben Aaronovitch...
Sixty seconds with D. E. Meredith...
Sixty seconds with Max Kinnings...
Sixty seconds with Louise Welsh...
Sixty seconds with Catriona McPherson...
Sixty seconds with Anne Zouroudi...
Sixty seconds with Val McDermid...
Sixty seconds with Barry Fantoni...
Sixty seconds with J A Jance...
Sixty seconds with Peter Lovesey...
Sixty seconds with Alex Gray...
Sixty seconds with Noah Hawley...
Sixty seconds with Jefferson Bass...
Sixty seconds with Howard Shrier...
Sixty seconds with David Thomas...
Sixty seconds with Matt Hilton...
Sixty seconds with Adrian Magson...
Sixty seconds with Lindsey Davis...
Sixty seconds with Sue Grafton...
Sixty seconds with Cath Staincliffe...
Sixty seconds with Paul Johnson...
Sixty seconds with Stuart Neville...
Sixty seconds with Simon Brett...
Sixty seconds with Andrew Martin...
Sixty seconds with Tess Gerritsen...
Sixty seconds with Garry Ryan...
Sixty seconds with Phil Rickman...
Sixty seconds with Neil White...
Sixty seconds with Mons Kallentoft...
Sixty seconds with Teresa Solana...
Sixty seconds with Frederick Forsyth...
Sixty seconds with Alan Bradley...
Sixty seconds with Simon Beckett...
Sixty seconds with Cara Black...
Sixty seconds with Alafair Burke...
Sixty seconds with Tony Park...
Sixty seconds with Robert Goddard...
Sixty seconds with S J Bolton...
Sixty seconds with Alex Kava...
Sixty seconds with Clem Chambers...
Sixty seconds with Colin Cotterill...
Sixty seconds with C J Box...
Sixty seconds with Barbara D'Amato...
Sixty seconds with Karen Rose...
Sixty seconds with Karen Rose...
Sixty seconds with Sophie Hannah...
Sixty seconds with Åke Edwardson...
Sixty seconds with Bryan Gruley...
Sixty seconds with Elena Forbes...
Sixty seconds with Kate Ellis...
Sixty seconds with Karin Slaughter...
Sixty seconds with Andrew Grant...
Sixty seconds with Quintin Jardine...
Sixty seconds with John Harvey...
Sixty seconds with Colin Bateman...
Sixty seconds with Jeremy Duns...
Sixty seconds with Lisa Lutz...
Sixty seconds with Malla Nunn...
Sixty seconds with Jeffery Deaver...
Sixty seconds with Joanne Harris...
Sixty seconds with James Sallis...
Sixty seconds with Martin Edwards...
Sixty seconds with Alan Glynn...
Sixty seconds with Dominique Manotti...
Sixty seconds with Lee Child...
Sixty seconds with Kathryn Fox...
Sixty seconds with Martin Walker...
Sixty seconds with Marcus Sakey...
Sixty seconds with Chris Mooney...
Sixty seconds with Paul Cleave...
Sixty seconds with Denise Mina...
Sixty seconds with Jack O'Connell...
Sixty seconds with Simon Hall...
Sixty seconds with Michael Gregorio...
Sixty seconds with LC Tyler...
Sixty seconds with Gerald Seymour...
Sixty seconds with Grace Monroe...
Sixty seconds with Charles Todd...
Sixty seconds with Rick Mofina...
Sixty seconds with Simon Lewis...
Sixty seconds with Gene Kerrigan...
Sixty seconds with China Miéville...
Sixty seconds with Stav Sherez...
Sixty seconds with Declan Hughes...
Sixty seconds with Gail Bowen...
Sixty seconds with Peter Leonard...
Sixty seconds with Cynthia Harrod-Eagles...
Sixty seconds with Catherine Sampson...
Sixty seconds with John Hart...
Sixty seconds with Chelsea Cain...
Sixty seconds with Tana French...
Sixty seconds with Michael Morley...
Sixty seconds with Laura Lippman...
Sixty seconds with Guillermo Martinez...
Sixty seconds with Maureen Carter...
Sixty seconds with Michael Allen Dymmoch...
Sixty seconds with Karna Small Bodman...
Sixty seconds with Tom Rob Smith...
Sixty seconds with Elaine Viets...
Sixty seconds with Neil Plakcy...
Sixty seconds with Chris Grabenstein...
Sixty seconds with Ruth Downie...
Sixty seconds with Brian McGilloway...
Sixty seconds with Reginald Hill...
Sixty seconds with Valerie Wilson Wesley...
Sixty seconds with Giancarlo De Cataldo...
Sixty seconds with Miyuki Miyabe...
Sixty seconds with Andrew Taylor...
Sixty seconds with Ann Cleeves...
Sixty seconds with Graham Hurley...
Sixty seconds with Qiu Xiaolong...
Sixty seconds with James Patterson...
Sixty seconds with Aline Templeton...
Sixty seconds with Jose Latour...
Sixty seconds with Brian Freeman...
Sixty seconds with Eileen Dreyer...
Sixty seconds with Sara Paretsky...
Sixty seconds with Steve Hockensmith...
Sixty seconds with Stuart Pawson...
Sixty seconds with Clea Simon...
Sixty seconds with Adrian Hyland...
Sixty seconds with Mark Billingham...
Sixty seconds with Louise Penny...
Sixty seconds with Jeff Cohen...
Sixty seconds with Stephen Booth...
Sixty seconds with Louise Ure...
Sixty seconds with Greg Rucka...
Sixty seconds with Dreda Say Mitchell...
Sixty seconds with Martin O'Brien...
Sixty seconds with Peter Robinson...
Sixty seconds with Nick Stone...
Sixty seconds with Elaine Flinn...
Sixty seconds with Christopher Brookmyre...
Sixty seconds with Gianrico Carofiglio...
Sixty seconds with Dan Fesperman...
Sixty seconds with Peter James...
Sixty seconds with Marshall Karp...
Sixty seconds with Michael Robotham...
Sixty seconds with Cornelia Read...
Sixty seconds with Deon Meyer...
Sixty seconds with Sheila Quigley...
Sixty seconds with Richard Stevenson...
Sixty seconds with Gayle Lynds...
Sixty seconds with Robert Fate...
Sixty seconds with John Connolly...
|
