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

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

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

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?

People are interested in crime fiction when they're quite distanced from crime. People in Darfur are not reading murder mysteries.

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.