Crime is a very hard genre to feminise. If you have a female protagonist she is going to be looking after her mum when she gets older; she is going to be worried about her brother and sister; she will be making a living while bringing up kids.

Crime fiction is the fiction of social history. Societies get the crimes they deserve.

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

I just got an honorary degree from Glasgow University, and I had to wear around very painful shoes so that I didn't laugh all the way through the ceremony because I felt like an outlaw.

I think graphic novels are closer to prose than film, which is a really different form.

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?

In my heart Im just a lucky waitress.