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.

Novelisation doesn't imply the truth. Readers are sophisticated enough to know that.

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 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.

In my heart Im just a lucky waitress.

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