Philip Kerr

At the Independent, some what Arifa Akbar found out from one minute with Philip Kerr, author of the "Bernhard Gunther" novels and other books:

Choose a favourite author, and say why you like her/him:

If I could choose her, I'd pick my wife, Jane Thynne, who writes thinking man's thrillers. But if that is too nepotistic, I'd say Raymond Chandler. He is a dark sort of PG Wodehouse, a great prose stylist whose descriptions are like perfect ice-cream sundaes. He has real firecracker descriptions of people.

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Which fictional character most resembles you?

Jack Torrance from [Stephen King's] The Shining. He has that writer's obsessive compulsiveness to sit in front of a computer no matter what. It touches so many nerves for authors.

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Who is your hero/heroine from outside literature?

David Hockney. I like his...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue