I don't necessarily love the sports per se, I love the stories behind them. Also in a kind of perverse way I like to study what it does to us, why we care so much. It's caring about something that's utterly meaningless.

If I had, say, a tall, amateur male lead living on the campus of a rural college (Six Years), the next book might feature a short, cop who lives in the heart of Manhattan (Missing You).

I used to wonder why Lucy liked those songs so much. You know what I mean? She sits in the dark and listens and cries. Music does that to her...I didn't understand for a long time. But I do now. The sad songs are a safe hurt. It's a diversion. It's controlled. And maybe it helps you imagine that real pain will be like that. But it's not. Lucy knows that, of course. You can't prepare for real pain. You just have to let it rip you apart.

Painful memories didn't just ease back in-they shoved the door open hard, all of them and all at once

Trust is like that. You can break it for a good reason. But it still remains broken.

I don't find any real rivalries with crime and thriller writers anyway. That might sound a little Pollyanna, but for the most part the writers I compete with, if you want to use that word, it's a pretty friendly rivalry. I think we all realise that the boat rises and sinks together.

There are three things that make a person a writer: inspiration, perspiration and desperation.