Collins masterfully blends fact and fiction...transcends the historical thriller.

We have years to converse with someone, to blurt and rant, to explain our desires and anger and regrets - and oh how we squander those moments.

Generally my typical books have lots of twists and turns a big surprise ending and then usually another surprise at the end and ideally, as in Garden of Beasts, we get to the very end and we find at the last few pages that there's yet another surprise.

In suspense novels even subplots about relationships have to have conflict.

It's becoming apparent that I like bad boys. That's one of my problems. They've all been bad boys. You're one too. You're a bad boy. But, I think you're a good bad boy.

People want to avoid the past. I suppose that's natural. When we tally up all we've said and done over the years, despite the wonderful memories, the regrets may be fewer but stand out more prominently, glowing coals that we can never quite extinguish, try though we might

Sometimes you can't be what you ought to be, you can't have what you ought to have.