The thirst for knowledge is like a piece of ass you know you shouldn't chase; in the end, you chase it just the same.

Top-shelf fiction, a Crown Royal ride into the heart of Night and New York. Con Lehane's work is reminiscent of the best of Lawrence Block, which is to say that this is very good stuff, indeed.

There's a school of thought that says if you legalize drugs it will solve the problem. We're all good liberals, we said let's do it and see what happens. We wanted to be honest about it. So in our brainstorming sessions we'd say, what if? The finding was that all the negative things came out also. The answer is that we didn't believe in the full legalization of drugs. But we don't believe in the criminalization of drugs, either.

But when I do book signings and personal appearances, the audiences are mostly white. Growing up here, I expected that and understand it. Black audiences won't come out for a white writer for the most part. It really is just a fact of life.

The thirst for knowledge is like a piece of ass you know you shouldn't chase; in the end, you chase it just the same.

The worst kind of novel is one that blames other people for the racial problem in order to make the reader feel good about himself. As if it's only rich white people or Republicans or conservatives who have this disease.

I'm proud to be a crime novelist. What I've chosen is the best way to convey the questions I'm trying to raise.