Paul Johnston

Paul Johnston was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1957. He was educated there and at Oxford University, where he gained a first class degree in Modern Greek and an MPhil in comparative literature. He also has a Master's from Edinburgh University and is working on a PhD in crime fiction at St Andrews University.

He is the author of three celebrated crime series: the Quint Dalrymple quintet set in a futuristic, Orwellian Edinburgh (Body Politic, The Bone Yard, Water of Death, The Blood Tree and The House of Dust); the Matt Wells quartet (The Death List, The Soul Collector, Maps of Hell and The Nameless Dead), featuring a crime writer who becomes an investigator; and the Greece-based Alex Mavros series (Crying Blue Murder, The Last Red Death, The Golden Silence and The Silver Stain), whose protagonist is a half Greek, half Scots missing persons specialist.

Paul also writes short stories, several of which have been published in the Best British Mysteries anthologies. His debut poetry collection, Water Sports, was published in 2011. He has taught fiction writing at several universities and literary festivals, and for the British Council. He has also chaired over 200 events at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, as well as translating and editing for a major charitable foundation, and writing foreign press releases for the Greek prime minister.

Paul has survived cancer twice (slap wood). He is married to a Greek, Roula, and has three children, Silje, Maggie and Alexander. Having spent much of the last twenty years in Greece, he now divides his time between the Peloponnese and southern Scotland.

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