If you went for a job interview in a Glasgow law firm, they used to ask you what school you went to. And that was a way of finding out what religion you were.

In prose, leaps of logic can be made while the protagonist thinks about things and arrives at conclusions. Even with voiceover, there's no real way of having an inner voice without it taking over the entire story.

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.

A man who thinks he has a higher purpose can do terrible things, even to those he professes to love.

None of us know what is going to sell or what people want to read.

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.

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