Paul Nicholas Sussman (11 July 1966 in

Beaconsfield Beaconsfield ( ) is a market town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in Buckinghamshire, England, northwest of central London and southeast of Aylesbury. Three other towns are within : Gerrards Cross, Amersham and High Wycombe. The ...

– 31 May 2012) was a best-selling English

author In legal discourse, an author is the creator of an original work that has been published, whether that work exists in written, graphic, visual, or recorded form. The act of creating such a work is referred to as authorship. Therefore, a sculpt ...

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

and

journalist A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

. His novels were described by ''

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'' as "the intelligent reader's answer to ''

The Da Vinci Code ''The Da Vinci Code'' is a 2003 mystery thriller novel by Dan Brown. It is “the best-selling American novel of all time.” Brown's second novel to include the character Robert Langdon—the first was his 2000 novel '' Angels & Demons''� ...

''".

Biography

Paul Sussman was the only son of Stanley, a sales manager for a textile manufacturer, and Sue, an actress-turned-psychoanalyst. After a few years in Hampstead the family moved to Northwood in north-west London. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School and St. John's College, Cambridge, where he won a Joseph Larmor Award and a boxing

blue Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB color model, RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB color model, RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between Violet (color), violet and cyan on the optical spe ...

and was lead singer in a college band, Dr and the Glasscocks. His novels have been translated into 33 languagesLink text
/ref> and are set mainly in

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

, where he worked for many years as a field

, notably with the Amarna Royal Tombs Project in the

Valley of the Kings The Valley of the Kings, also known as the Valley of the Gates of the Kings, is an area in Egypt where, for a period of nearly 500 years from the Eighteenth Dynasty to the Twentieth Dynasty, rock-cut tombs were excavated for pharaohs and power ...

. Among other finds, at Tomb

KV56 Tomb KV56, also known as the Gold Tomb, is a tomb located in the Valley of the Kings, near Luxor, Egypt. It was discovered by Edward R. Ayrton in January 1908 and contained what is thought to be the intact burial of a royal child from the late N ...

, in the Valley of the Kings, he unearthed the first items of pharaonic jewellery to have been excavated in the Valley since the discovery of

Tutankhamun Tutankhamun or Tutankhamen, (; ), was an Egyptian pharaoh who ruled during the late Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, Eighteenth Dynasty of ancient Egypt. Born Tutankhaten, he instituted the restoration of the traditional polytheistic form of an ...

in 1922. As a journalist, he was a long-time contributor to ''

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'', where he won a

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Columnist of the Year Award for his satirical "In The News" column. He also wrote for, among others, ''

'', ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', ''

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'', ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...

'', ''

The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British political and cultural news magazine. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving magazine in the world. ''The Spectator'' is politically conservative, and its principal subject a ...

'', ''

Cosmopolitan Cosmopolitan may refer to: Internationalism * World citizen, one who eschews traditional geopolitical divisions derived from national citizenship * Cosmopolitanism, the idea that all of humanity belongs to a single moral community * Cosmopolitan ...

'' and ''

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''.

Death

On 31 May 2012, Sussman died suddenly after suffering a ruptured

aneurysm An aneurysm is an outward :wikt:bulge, bulging, likened to a bubble or balloon, caused by a localized, abnormal, weak spot on a blood vessel wall. Aneurysms may be a result of a hereditary condition or an acquired disease. Aneurysms can also b ...

. He was survived by his wife and two sons.

Books

Fiction

* ''The Lost Army of Cambyses'' (2002) — Yusuf Khalifa of the Luxor Police * ''The Last Secret of the Temple'' (2005) — Yusuf Khalifa of the Luxor Police and Jerusalem detective Arieh Ben-Roi * ''The Hidden Oasis'' (2009) * ''The Labyrinth of Osiris'' (June 2012) — Yusuf Khalifa and Arieh Ben-Roi * '' The Final Testimony of Raphael Ignatius Phoenix '' (2014)

Non-fiction

* ''The Ultimate Encyclopaedia of the Movies'' (1994) (contributor) * ''Death by Spaghetti...: Bizarre, Baffling and Bonkers True: Stories from In The News'' (1996)

References

External links

Paul Sussman official website

Paul Sussman
at ''Fantastic Fiction'' * Nicholas Reeves
Re-excavating ‘The Gold Tomb’
Text of a lecture delivered at the day school "Valley of the Kings: The Amarna Royal Tombs Project 1998-2001", 29 September 2001, at the UCL Bloomsbury Theatre, London. {{DEFAULTSORT:Sussman, Paul Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge English archaeologists 20th-century English male writers 21st-century English male writers English crime fiction writers English Egyptologists English male journalists People educated at Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood People from Beaconsfield 1966 births 2012 deaths