Writers are in the entertainment business, and it gives me lots of pleasure to entertain my readers.

We've got one life and the older we get the more we come to realize how short it is.

If, like Harry Keogh, I could talk to the dead - God, there are an awful lot of people I would like to speak to! Not least my father. Being in the army for 22 years, I didnt see enough of him, and I know there are a great many things I could have learned from him.

I have friends who read my books in Greek.

I'll know when the ideas aren't fresh anymore. And I'll know when writing doesn't give me a thrill anymore.

German readers are much like Brits or Americans: They read for the thrill of it, the occasional shudder down the spine, knowing it's not real - but looking over their shoulders anyway, just in case.

And I have to consider myself fortunate, because there are plenty of writers who spend most of a lifetime looking for that certain something without ever finding it.