I wandered the earth a mercenary, daring the gods to kill me but surviving because part of me was already dead.

Publishing for me is a business, not an ideology.

When I wrote my eighth thriller, Inside Out, in 2009, the villains were a group of CIA and other government officials who colluded to destroy a series of tapes depicting Americans torturing war-on-terror prisoners.

The two most important things to do for self-defense are not to take a martial arts class or get a gun, but to think like the opposition and know where you're most at risk.

Paper publishers are doing everything they can to slow the transition to eBooks because, in a digital world, paper publishers' high hardback margins essentially disappear.

From the outside, the CIA seems pretty exotic, but from the inside, it's a big bureaucratic place. Think 'post office with spies.'

Overall, one of the things that excites me most about self-publishing is that the highest-value use of my time in promoting the books will be found in writing more of them.