The Book Depository interview R J Ellory

Here are a couple of snippets from the Book Depository interview of author, R J Ellory, whose fifth book, A Quiet Belief in Angels was selected for this year's Richard & Judy bookclub:

MT: What does it mean to you to be on the Richard & Judy list?

RJE: It has been unimaginable. Truly! To put it in perspective, the paperback print run for my last novel City of Lies was something in the region of 7500 copies. Yesterday I received a call to say that another print run of A Quiet Belief had been authorised, which now brings the total number of copies in circulation to 193,000.

MT: What draws you to crime-writing Roger?

RJE: The simple fact of putting an ordinary individual into an extraordinary situation. The vast majority of us never have to deal with bank robberies and murders and suchlike. For me it has always been the challenge of representing the nature of people, how people deal with difficult and trying situations, how they cope with the tougher aspects of being human. A wonderful lady at the Bookseller Magazine called Sarah Broadhurst once said that I didn’t write crime fiction as such, I wrote ‘human dramas, but always in some way focused around a crime’, and I think that’s possibly the best description that was ever given of what I am trying to do.

Read the whole interview here