RJ Ellory is the author of five novels, including the mesmeric thriller A Quiet Belief in Angels.
Despite being brought up and living in the UK, Ellory has set all five of his books in the US. One element of A Quiet Belief I didn't address in my review was the evocation of 1940s Georgia, so perhaps that might have been a better question to ask than what he eats while he writes. Next time perhaps.
I'm grateful to Roger for taking the time to answer the questions:
Favourite author:
An impossible-to-answer question, entirely
unfair, and will have to be based on my current predilection for 'Southern'
authors, or at least those who writer Southern. I'm giving you a list,
and you can select whichever one you agree with most. Capote, Harper Lee,
Annie Proulx, William Styron, John Irving and James Ellroy.
Favourite book:
Once again, entirely impossible, but based on
what I have read and enjoyed recently, and what I really feel is a masterpiece
of tension, prose and character, it would have to be 'In Cold Blood' by Capote.
Favourite character:
Nathan - from Sophie's Choice by William
Styron.
Best book read in 2007:
In Cold Blood
Best crime city:
New York, undoubtedly.
Best film adaptation:
Goodfellas from the book
'Wiseguy' by Nicholas Pileggi.
Book that gave you the thriller bug:
Book that gave me the writing
bug was 'The Shining' by Stephen King, when I was thirteen. I sort
of fell into writing thrillers after writing a lot of very long, very verbose
supernatural novels.
Author to watch:
I'm sorry...I read almost no contemporary
fiction at all! I have absolutely no idea.
What you snack on while writing:
I don't. I used to smoke (a lot!) but I
quit last year, and if I drink Jack Daniels I lose concentration, so I drink
coffee, sometimes tea, and I don't snack because I would grow to vast
proportions and then I would have to exercise, and vast numbers of
people actually collapse and die while exercising, so it has never seemed
a sensible lifestyle choice to me.
Who would play RJ
Ellory in a film of your life:
What a question! I
think Philip Seymour Hoffman perhaps. We have similar colour hair,
similar build, and he's sufficiently versatile to do an English guy and pull it
off.