To have a very strong opinion all the time is corrosive to a person's intellect. It becomes your default position.

Even if people do wrong, we're social animals, so what can we do about stopping them doing the same things in future? Saying people are 'bad' or 'evil' is just an unwillingness to engage; an unwillingness to try to empathise. That sanctimonious attitude doesn't help anyone

Journalism is a Darwinian process.

Because I write a book a year, I always want to do one other project every year that's stimulating in a different way. It means you can be working but not using up your prose juice, you know?

I always wanted to work at Take A Break magazine, you know, just to inject a little bit of politics into their stories. I applied for a job there after I'd done my law degree and didn't even get an interview. I only wrote Garnethill because I didn't get that job!

I'd read so much right-wing crime fiction where they find the evidence and shoot the bad guy - I thought there must be another approach.

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.