Usually when I'm trying to establish character, I try and find out where they live.

I respond very well to rules. If there are certain parameters it's much easier to do something really good. Especially when readers know what those are. They know what to expect and then you have to wrong-foot them. That is the trick of crime fiction. And readers come to crime and graphic novels wanting to be entertained, or disgusted.

Journalism is a Darwinian process.

I have two children. They are more fun than anything in the world, and it's more immediate fun than the hard slog of writing.

I love Mikhail Bulgakov. He is very original and takes the story to unexpected places. I didn't realise political writing could be so funny.

I think the negative traits are what makes us love other human beings, the foibles and the flaws.

My upbringing was middle-class but my parents' families were both working-class so I had this odd combination of working-class background but in a privileged position.