There's a real emphasis on being witty in Scotland, even in crime novels.

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

Journalism is a Darwinian process.

Most of the people who write to me are really clever, really engaged. They just want to say that they have read my book and liked it.

In the 'Garnethill' trilogy, people always forget that Maureen O'Donnell's dad was a journalist and she did art history at uni and her brother did law, but no-one ever thinks they're middle-class - they're just working class because they speak with accents.

I'm always represented as a bit of a class warrior - a bit Down With Men and Down With Middle-Class People. Whereas I'm actually very fond of men and am middle-class. I even went to boarding school in Perthshire.

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