Mighty Aphrodite

PW: How did Aphrodite originate?

Russell Andrews: First, my friend and mentor, the writer William Goldman, called me up to tell me about an obituary that appeared in the New York Times. It turned out that everything in the obit was untrue—and the Times later printed a retraction. Next, as a book editor, I had worked with President Jimmy Carter, who wrote a book for me about aging. He talked a lot about the huge problems that would arise because people kept living longer, like Social Security running out. Third, I became interested in the billions of dollars that were being made by drug companies with products geared for staying young, everything from Viagra to hair restoration. I began to concoct a conspiracy between huge drug companies and the U.S. government—and eventually tied that in to what I'd learned from President Carter and the strange Times obituary.

PW: Robert Ludlum cornered the market on conspiracy thrillers, but Aphrodite seems to take it one step further. Was this a consideration?

RA: I think comparing Aphrodite to Robert Ludlum is a reasonably apt comparison—I certainly hope it is when it comes to sales. But I have to say, I never thought about topping him or taking this book one step further. I just did what felt natural from a character standpoint and a plot standpoint.

PW: Did other mystery writers influence you?

RA: Several other writers have influenced me. William Diehl is one. I admire the way he injects depth into his characters as well as his plots. I've recently become a huge fan of Ian Rankin. I love Rankin's darkness and his ability to reveal weakness, even—well, especially—in his lead character. Finally, although Alfred Hitchcock isn't an author, I've also been tremendously influenced by him, for the suspense he brings to his films as well as the humor.

PW: You seem to be influenced by other films, too. For example, in one scene in Aphrodite, Justin Westwood, the protagonist, looks up a silent movie, The Queen of Sheba, which was a real silent film made in 1921.

RA: I'm a movie fanatic. I've seen a million movies, know a lot about them, and have written quite a few screenplays. I also spend way too much time on sites like IMDB.com and moviecitynews.com. So I thought I'd use all that and have fun with it.

PW: Have the movie rights to Aphrodite been sold?

RA: The film rights have not been sold yet. But my agents are working on it. There has been a reasonable amount of interest.

PW: Have we seen the last of Justin Westwood?

RA: You have definitely not seen the last of Justin Westwood. He's someone I got to love as I was writing Aphrodite. I'm hard at work on the next Russell Andrews thriller, which is called Midas. Westwood returns to find himself in a conspiracy that I think is more frightening—and in some ways even more potentially realistic—than what he has to survive in Aphrodite.

PW: You write under a pseudonym?

RA: There is no Russell Andrews. That's my pseudonym, and my real name is Peter Gethers. The first Russell Andrews thriller, Gideon, was co-written with my now ex-writing partner. He didn't want to keep writing this kind of thriller, and I did. So I took over the pseudonym—the book was quite successful here and was a bestseller in England, so the publishers wanted Russell Andrews more than they wanted Peter Gethers—and I have now written these two [Aphrodite and Icarus] on my own. With this book, Warner Books decided to say that I was really the author. I'm sure it'll help with publicity. And when I tell people that I wrote these thrillers, now I won't have to call my agent or editor to have them swear that I'm not a liar.